Ron, Marjo and Matthew

Sir, you have an e-mail waiting in your inbox :sunglasses:

Just got the top up!

I checked the passenger side arm and it had some cracks in it and was bended a little bit.
After that I unbolted it at the cylinders and tried to get the top up by hand. It was pretty hard to do as it was stuck somewhere at the passenger side.
After a close inspection i found out that it was stuck at the part that is bolted onto the middle section.
Here, right at the bolt

Started thinking and :bulb: i knew it!

I checked the drivers side arm and yes! This is it.
As you can see on John Q’s pics the arm has a round hole in it where a bolt goes in so it can move.
These arms had some force on them and they started to bend and crack (that why it is making a weird angle on the pic above!)
The round whole turned into an oval and the bolt is holding it all in place so it won’t move.

So we need the linkage for the drivers side and passenger side.
Johnny Q is on it and hopefully we have a working top soon!

So here is what i am gathering from the evidence and descriptions so far:
If i am correct, the Keijs need this bar for the drivers side, and its mirror image for the passenger side.
They can grind off the rivets, saving the good pieces, then use new rivets to re-assemble. :slight_smile:
cvt top bars.PDF (1.8 MB)

Roger, you are right on the money again. It is the long bar that broke of this 3 piece assembly.

Roger, I was able to have a Skype session with Ron and Matthew early this morning (late afternoon for the Keijs) and we all concured it was the long bar as Roger surmised.

We also decided we would make all three pieces of this assembly for both the broken drivers side and the bent passenger side. Mopar Ricky (Rick Clapham) who lives nearby me also chimed in (via a phone call) to offer some help since he has a plasma cutter and a 12 ton press at the Police garage he is a Master Mechanic at.(Hope they don’t see my picture on the wall…) :laughing:

By making all both DS and PS assemblies of 3 parts, the Keijs can decide to use what is still good or use this new stuff when they re-assemble.

Now on Monday, I can go to the local steel supply company and aske for a plate of 1/4 inch (.2500") steel in which to transfer the 3 pieces on it (actually 3 pieces times two) and then cut out the 6 pieces and then grind smooth the edges a bit so they have a slight chamfer on them and figure out where to use the press on them for the correct bends and offsets. I can pre-drill the holes that are know, I will need some help for a guestimate from the Keijs on what the hole diameter is for the rivet hole. With my rivet still in place I can only guess what it is. But since the Keij’s have half of a broken piece they can probably provide the needed info to me.

Sure glad I paid attention in 8th grade metal shop!!!

Since I used to work for the Chrysler factory many years ago, we can still say that is a factory made piece!!! :laughing:

Hopefully be done in a couple weeks with it and whisk it off to the Frozen Dutch countryside for re-installation.

John Q.