Getting it covered
After last month’s big push to get the A40’s load area tidied up and having secured the load floor with some natty sliding cabinet fixings, I began to make up a cover for the load area. This will help when the car’s parked up so no one can see the collection of tools I keep in the back. “Don’t keep tools in the back then,” I hear you cry. But as many of you will know, the act of taking your classic out without the comfort of knowing there are some ‘just in case’ tools to hand can lead to a thoroughly miserable day out.
This is because rather than enjoying the drive, you’ll be harbouring the suspicion that the car will break down in the least convenient location. Sod’s Law of course dictates that the car will perform faultlessly, saving a breakdown for another day when typically, you won’t have the necessary spares, or correct tool, on board to get you going again. But I digress...
Having liberated a modern car’s load cover from a skip, once the material was stripped from the mechanism it was found to be an almost perfect fit for the rear of the A40. With the seat back removed and the new cover attached to it, a quick email to the A40 Farina Owners’ Club’s spares guru, Derek Minter, produced a replacement pivot mounting. At a cost of just £3 and in my letterbox three days later, this was a good find as the original had given up the ghost some time ago. Equally frugal purchasing ensued when I obtained a set of four turn-button fasteners, complete with eyelets for just £2.24. This is my kind of classic motoring!
With the old and in some cases rusty turn-buttons replaced with shiny new ones, the seat back was replaced; no mean feat in a car that is fitted with
three-point front harnesses. I was then able to pull up the load cover onto the rear lip of the boot and hold it in place with clamps before marking and making a cut where the turn-buttons were pressing on the material, with a sharp blade to allow the turn-button to pass through. With all positions marked, the next step was to fix the eyelets in position using the holes cut as a guide. The eyelets were positioned over the holes and with a sharp blade, made small cuts by each prong, as the load area material was too tough to push them through by hand.
Once secured onto the cover material, the backing plate was added and the prongs on each eyelet bent over to give a nice neat finish to the work. When this stage was complete, I carefully cut away the material visible in the centre of the eyelet, ensuring a nice clean finish and more importantly a hole in the right place. With the cover now held in place by the turn-buttons all that remained was to trim off the excess material, which again was an easy task as the lower metalwork of the rear window providing an ideal cutting template for the sharp knife to accurately trim the material.
This was an easy job and I’d recommend doing it this as a DIY task to anyone looking to replace a hood or to make up a tonneau cover. For me, the main problem was ease of access to the cover due to the boot lid of the A40, sticking out as far as it does once lowered. Having tried several positions, the optimum and least painful on my back, was to kneel down and attack each eyelet from different angles. After 60 minutes or so the job was done, but so was my back so I took myself off for a lie down and a well-earned cup of tea. Cheers! You can find a time-lapse video of Eric’s engine build and swap by going to:
www.tinyurl.com/A40Videos
With all positions marked, the next step was to fix the eyelets in position using the holes cut as a guide