Used Tonneau Cover refit

[ernestovumbles]

I've always loved the way 1950's and 1960's cars looked with a tonneau cover over the passenger side seat,
and the "security" of having a cover for a no-top Alpine S3-GT if I am caught out in a drizzle or away from my car.
My Alpine came with a used tonneau which fits in the back portion of the car, but none of the front holes line up with the pins.

I've decided to make some adapter pieces to make the front part of the cover workable.
I havent done anything like this before so I am kind of freeballing it as I go.
I thought I'd document what I am doing here for others to learn what to do, or what not to do ;-)

Up until this morning I was planning on using nylon strap material to connect the pins on the car to new lift-the-dot connectors, but then I saw some pics in the gallery from @Ken Ellis and I decided to change my approach to use some vinyl seat material leftover from a motorcycle seat recover project.

My first step was to make a template for the vinyl to cover part of the dash top and mark the spots to punch holes for the lift-the-dot connectors. I'll worry about the location of the tonneau cover connectors later.

I used some parchment paper and a sharpie to draw the line at the windshield edge and poked the pins thru where needed, reinforced with masking tape.
next step tomorrow will be to transfer the template shape to the vinyl

I usually dont work very quickly, but I will post up more pictures as I make progress.

Trial fit of the tonneau cover.. this must have been from a later series Alpine because the spacing of the center pins is very different, and there is no way it would stretch far enough to reach the pins even if it was lined up correctly.

bag of lift-the-dot connectors ready to go

 

[alpine_64]

Your tonneau has the holes for the pegs that thr factory started fitting in the dashpad midway back from the screen.

They did this as the pegs in the defroster vents are a ...... to access. The factory covers with that locarion had tabs coming off the press buttons to help you pull them back.

 

[ernestovumbles]

They did this as the pegs in the defroster vents are a ...... to access

If this works how I think it will I'll just leave the vinyl adapter in place and not having to worry about getting to the pins after the first time..

A bit more work today, transferring the paper template to vinyl, cutting things out and sewing the top seam.

I made a 2 inch extra seam allowance so that there will be a double thickness of vinyl at the lift-the-dot forward locations.

I passed the initial feline quality control inspection

Finishing up the forward edge that will go along the windshield.

 

[sunbeamowner]

You mean a 'CAT SCAN'.

 

[ernestovumbles]

The main proof of concept part of the adapter is complete.
I still have a bunch of details left to do.. small adapter pieces for the door pins, trimming the main vinyl smaller and adding seams all around.
The pins right at the base of the windshield do indeed make it brutal to remove the litf-the-dots so I intend to leave this adapter piece on permanently, sort of like a dash cover.

I like how the tonneau looks both fully closed and just the passenger side closed.