Paris SWB Beach Buggy Conversion to DOT fixings

1st April 2012

The Paris conversion had been pretty much successful but it was noticeable that the fixings to the body would come unlatched at high speed.

I had seen some different fittings that looked stronger and hopefully might hold the roof on more securely. The Link the Dot fixings I found seemed to have a different latch mechanism . I luckily had a small fragment of the roof material I had previously cut off. I purchased some of these DOT fixings and fitted them alongside the existing popper to test the strength of each of the fixings. Several tests was performed and the results where all in favor of the Link The DOT fixing holding more securely.

The original popper fixings was removed from the hood with a HSS metal drill, that was used on the underside of the popper to drill out the riveted section. The popper fell apart easily after this. I used a hole punch to make the hole slightly larger the DOT fixing was then placed over the hole to align its position. I used a rubber mallet and placed the fixing and hoot on a piece of wood. I struck the fixing with the rubber mallet to get the fixing to penetrate the hood. This allowed the fixings tabs to pass neatly through the hood. The tabs then was pushed through the back retaining piece . This enabled the cloth fixing to be secured well onto the fabric of the hood. I used a small pair of pliers to bed over the tabs onto the backing piece. This held the backing piece firmly in place. The pictures show the cloth hood with the front and back view of the new fixings. The rear surface of the hood fittings seemed quite able to scratch paint and I knew I would have to raise the fixings on the back of the buggy to ensure that they would not rub.

I bought 32 Link The DOT 5mm threaded studs. These went in to the dash frame easily. I tried drilling out the holes in the body work to take a sheet lock nut these although expensive and made from stainless did not secure into the bodywork successfully. I decided that I would have to put a fixing through the fibre glass and then fix the DOT stud to this.



I decided that there was two options for fixing the DOT stud one was a brass bolt and the other a Stainless Steel A2 bolt, the latter being more favorable I took an M8 bolt x 30mm and drilled the end 4.5mm x 12mm to take the Link The DOT stud. This proved to be a very good fixing and I was able to bolt the M8 bolt through the body work with washers . This had the advantage of raising the DOT stud up from the body work. The only issue was that I had to make 19 of these to fit around the back. I started making them and found it took me five hours to make five. This got harder as I broke my 5mm tap and managed to make every small drill I had blunt. I ordered a new 5mm Dormer High quality tap and a new Dormer Cobalt Jobber drill A777. The seven fixing I have mounted on so far look good have been working slowly on them. The new fixings look a lot stronger the bad weather that was forecast has put a temporary end to the sunshine and I must complete the other studs.