Lancia Scorpion roof straps

RJ80

True Classic
Over the rainy weekend, I went back to trying to fit my new TMH fiberglass roof in place on my car with no luck. Well, I suppose with some bad luck: I ended up breaking the driver's side roof strap in the process. Knew that would happen some day, ended up being a bit sooner than expected.

Looks like the only viable replacements are at The Monte Hospital for a couple hundred dollars after shipping, but it looks like they're durable enough to hopefully last another 40 years. Has anyone bought the TMH roof straps before? Do I need their hardware to install (sold seperately), or can I reuse my old stuff?

And incidentally, has anyone here fitted the TMH fiberglass roof? Mine goes into place fine, but the rearward soft top stowage panel simply won't click shut with the roof in place. I've spent way too long trying, ultimately breaking the strap in the process. Does it need adjustment to accommodate the roof?

Thanks for any input,
Rory
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I thought I'd update this thread after purchasing The Monte Hospital roof straps and installing them, along with the TMH fiberglass 037-style roof.
TMH says their replacement roof straps are made from a material used to make ski bindings and as such are plenty durable. I figure my original straps lasted 40+ years, if these do the same, I'll be happy.

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The new straps come on "trees," as with a scale plastic model kit. They are perfectly straight from new, but TMH says they will naturally curve themselves to the roof profile when installed.

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I used both an X-Acto hobby knife and a Stanley utility knife to carefully trim the straps from their trees and prepare them for installation.

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I also ordered a new set of TMH strap mounting plates that fix the straps to the car at the front. On inspection of these, the bolts supplied by TMH were significantly shorter than stock. Since my existing plates and bolts looked fine, I elected to reuse them instead. Really, I can't see how these would wear out, save for cross-threading a bolt. I'd recommend skipping the TMH items unless you're missing this hardware altogether.

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TMH says that to mount the straps at the rear, the mounting holes on the lift-up metal roof panel need to be elongated. Here you can see that after mounting the straps in the front, the studs on the straps don't quite reach the mounting holes, hence the need for elongating. I don't know if there is a functional purpose for this or if it is just a TMH design/production flaw. My guess is the latter.

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It's really no big deal to elongate the holes by the recommended 6mm, I used a small circular file and finished the job in a couple minutes per side. TMH says this process may require a little tweaking to get the roof to close properly under the correct amount of tension, but 5-6 mm each side seemed to do the trick for me. I suppose you could potentially over-lengthen the holes, resulting in straps that are too loose, so you do have to file, test, file, test...

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Once installed, the straps are not as flexible as the 40-year-old originals but seem to work great. It took about 10 minutes of fiddling to get the double-bubble roof panel to fit properly, plus some help from my wife to get each side lined up correctly, but once installed it seems to fit quite well. The top does not seem to fit in the front trunk, unfortunately, as I'd thought it might. I'm more of a coupe fan anyway, so the top will probably be kept on the car most of the time.
 
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AWESOME write-up! IIRC, Rod mentioned to me that they were having trouble with fitment on some of the straps they had sold, but that was a couple of years ago. I thought my straps were missing when I bought the car and was set up to buy theirs. But then after digging around in the frunk I found the original straps, in good shape. I'm kind of wishing I kept the double bubble I purchased from them.

tJ
 
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