Fitting the half hood and boot cover
As detailed before, I spec'd my car without a full hood. Instead I purchased a mohair half hood with Easy-In zips direct from Oxted Trimming. I also got a matching boot cover. My car has come with very nice sidescreens that have white piping around the edges, so all that's needed is to fit the hood and replace the vinyl boot cover with my new mohair one.
Fitting the half hood is straight forward. Simply attach the side straps under the roll bar side bolts, and then feed the other straps between the roll bar and rear panel. The boot cover is a bit more tricky.
The cover has holes pre-drilled in the metal leading edge bar, so the first job is to locate them and make holes through the mohair. I just used a self-taping screw for this. With the old boot cover removed, I put the new cover in position and secured it lightly with 4 screws through the metal edge bar. Then it's a matter of using a white chinagraph pen to mark up the popper positions. As I don't have the expensive tool to punch the popper heads in situ I had to remove the boot cover and fit the poppers 2 at a time using the basic punch tool kit and a hammer. I started at the centre and worked my way outwards on either side, refitting the cover and marking the next popper positions each time. It took an hour or so, but the results are a nicely tensioned cover.
I'm super happy with this. I now have a full matching set of boot cover, half hood and sidescreens all with Old-English piping and welting.
