For a while, I have had what I thought, was a good idea for a cheap, good-looking coupe back conversion for the VX. Up till now, the ones available to my eye & many others just does not look like a factory designed conversion or what I think the designer who penned the VX220 would have created.
I did buy a JJJ coupe rear lid & roof with an air vent for my car but, sold it on because it looked ghastly & the quality of the items were just pants. It also looked at best, after a lot of labour & tweaking, just average. The fit & finish never did it for me. The lines did not flow quite as well as it should have & it looked awkward.
I have a specific requirement for my track car, which is to get heat away from the engine in two ways. Firstly, getting more air into the engine bay & also by removing the hot air.
I did not want a tipping clam or fancy brackets to fabricate. But good access & an easy removal of the clam was essential. I don’t do spanner work at the track because I can’t! actually, I can’t do it at home either! lol.
I was amongst the first to cut great big holes in the back of the car for track use. It seemed like a good idea after I had seen a few other’s cars that had done the dremmel thing. Again, it looks awful. It weakens the clam & cracks quickly set in. Vast quantities of mesh tend to look cheap with all sorts of wonderful shapes that have been tried. Some shapes work better than others, but it still doesn’t look great.
I recently purchased from a young man (Joe) a used rear clam as my rear clam is badly damaged & with way too many holes with mesh. I carried out the initial mock-up on my old rear clam so that I could learn from any mistakes before doing it for real on the new Joey clam.
The main idea was to utilise the existing lid & its surround including the locking mechanism. The hinge system close to the rear window bulkhead could be utilised with a simple raised metal bracket.
The rollover cover front edge & outer shell would be mostly incorporated into the new buttresses & lid surround. I am keeping the two standard lid grills, but these could be replaced with drilled Perspex if you want to be able to see out of the rear window more. Having measured the top brake light, I think it could also be retained, just.
The photos show what I have come up with so far. Simple, nothing fancy. The new buttresses with petrol cap & the opposite side will flow & follow the curvature of the original but will be swept back to the rear of the boot corner. Again, the curvature of the roof & its crease will continue down the buttress.
I may just have fabricated, an aluminium 10mm angled frame for both sides, which will follow the buttress edges & newly located lid frame. They will then have black aluminium mesh fitted for better cooling.
My boot lid has the underside fibreglass braces cut off, this was done years ago, so it flexes sufficiently to curve to the roof shape. However, the standard boot lid may require several cut lines put into the underside fibreglass bracing to allow it to be curved to match the roof shape. Once the correct curvature is made to the lid (it does not require a lot!) then the underside bracing will need to have some new fibreglass & resin to maintain the shape. It will then function just like the old lid. The boot bulkhead could be extended up to meet the cross frame & to form an enclosed boot area. I will be removing the boot bulkhead for heat to escape, but not through big holes cut out in the back, but through where the OEM rear lights would have been.
For those interested, the rear light mesh vents, they were produced by utilising a pair of Robin fibreglass covers. I dremmelled out openings leaving a border which follows the lines of the car. The mesh & frame will be painted black. I will, however, be using a different mesh as I don't like the mesh I have used in the test. Also, the rear lights will be round LED Halo lights, not the one shown. The back of the light will be cut out fully with an aluminium bracket to mount the light on. It should leave plenty of space around for hot air to exit.
