Ok, before we all get excited, this is for a pre-vapour build early in head project....

I'm thinking about building an external roll cage with a canvas hood hung within it. The aim to produce a dry-ish four seat family vehicle for light offroading with the hood on and then strip the hood and door tops off for competition. Maybe even adding a bolt in diagonal on the cage when the hood is off.

Help I'm after as follows:

Has anybody hung the hood inside the cage before? Is it possible?! Photos!!!!

Any ideas on good hood mounting - how fix to the windscreen top and body nicer than original. Also how to hang inside the cage, for example laced on, or zipped tubes. How to tension the hood inside the cage, with no bars to wrap back on. I've worked on boat canopies with wine-glass rails and bolt rope attachment, anybody used that on a car?

Any tips on neat external cages, I like the style where they mount on the chassis within the body and then appear through the body in the curve below the glass, but is this the best way? I'll probably combine the cage with tubular wings, so this may be best.

what about this type of thing?

xj removable top project not sure if it would work to good with a disco but may be a range rover...

cos i know you are prob better at welding than sewing but then again.......

Great link Moose, thank you. I particularily like the way he has attached the front of the bikini top. The only porblem is my plan is to reduce weight, while that guy seems to have made a careful effort to add as much weight as possible.

Anyway, who said it was for a Discovery? And certainly nobody mentioned a V8 addition to the Watson fleet

Bear in mind the XJ is a unibody so needed some of that tube to remain rigid. Otherwise could use a lot less with a chassis.

Yep, I figured that, but he did really go to town in his boot stowages! Darn good fabrication skills though.

In a bit more detail my thoughts were your typical 6 point 90 hardtop external cage (legs in front of screen, two parallel hoops behind) but with the hood within the cage, rather than using the cage as beefed up hood sticks. I imagined the hood attached to the screen top as normal, with tubes around the two rear hoops, but I can't work out how I would get a nice amount of tension on the hood without nasty lacing of the hood onto the cage. Also I wanted a good weather tight front to screen attachment.

I'm aiming for a nice slick look and something different.

Make the cage a very tight fit to the original lines of the body and use press studs to 'pop' it to the cage.

Alternatively can you not put some sort of tent pole type things in the hood so it has its own shape and it just steadied by the cage?



Will.

Wasn't 'ALF' set up a bit like this?

Sure I have some photos somewhere...I'll be back...

Will

OK, how about sewing neodymium magnets into the hood so it literally sticks to the inside of the hoop? They might not give sufficient tension - but they can develop 50N or more force each. Around the screen you could sew a steel bar in to the front which folds back on itself and goes in to a forward facing slot (much like the SV90 / NAS hoods). Then use butterfly toggles (much better than press studs) around the tub.

Si