Major GTX1 Surgery...

[Kip Ewing]

Thanks everyone

I want to thank everyone for the kind comments on the project.

Thanks, so much KJSlider.
We are indeed getting a great response to the roof project.
So far, we've got 5 cars scheduled for roofs with another one we are going to try to coordinate overseas.

While I have been here at the Rally, I've had my guys focused on making all the bits for us to assemble into roofs, when I get back.

With the success we've enjoyed on the roof project, it looks like we will be doing some GTX1 conversions, as well.

We have also had some interest in putting the GTX1 clamshell treatment on a coupe with the new roofline we created. It would require modification of the doors, to make them like a 'normal' door and thus easier to get in and out of.

Thanks again, to everyone.
I really appreciate everyone following the thread and offering their support.

We'll do another 'in-progress' thread on the next big project.

Cheers from Austin!
Kip

 

[RALPHIE]

:wink (Needs a Gurney Bubble) :wink

:lol

 

[Kip Ewing]

Anything is possible

:wink (Needs a Gurney Bubble) :wink

:lol

Anything is possible Ralphie.
Send that car over, and we will hook you up!

 

[Cyclenirvana]

Kip,
I think there may be quite a few of us who in the long term would like to take a non-modified GT (as opposed to a GTX-1) with the original body lines intact and convert it to a convertible. As you mentioned this would involve making the doors normal, which I don't have a problem with...it was cool at first, but now it is mostly a pain. Keep us up to date.
Fantastic work...I look forward to seeing more.
Scott

 

[HeritageBruce]

Kip,
I think there may be quite a few of us who in the long term would like to take a non-modified GT (as opposed to a GTX-1) with the original body lines intact and convert it to a convertible. As you mentioned this would involve making the doors normal, which I don't have a problem with...it was cool at first, but now it is mostly a pain. Keep us up to date.
Fantastic work...I look forward to seeing more.
Scott

Same here. I prefer to keep the roof intact and at least physicologically I'd feel the car is stiffer. If the top portion of the doors can be cut-off and made into a removable mini t-top type panels that snap into the existing roof openings, we'd get a Smoky and the Bandit t-top while making ingress and egress easier, I'd be all over this mod. I still have fond memories of my '79 Z28 (not quite Burt's Trans Am) w/ t-tops. :banana

 

[Kip Ewing]

GTX1 conversions

Greetings Scott

I've had a number of people express interest in having us do a GTX1 conversion.

We are ready to do it. Just a matter of who is first.

Cheers
Kip

Kip,
I think there may be quite a few of us who in the long term would like to take a non-modified GT (as opposed to a GTX-1) with the original body lines intact and convert it to a convertible. As you mentioned this would involve making the doors normal, which I don't have a problem with...it was cool at first, but now it is mostly a pain. Keep us up to date.
Fantastic work...I look forward to seeing more.
Scott

 

[Kip Ewing]

Modified Coupes

Same here. I prefer to keep the roof intact and at least physicologically I'd feel the car is stiffer. If the top portion of the doors can be cut-off and made into a removable mini t-top type panels that snap into the existing roof openings, we'd get a Smoky and the Bandit t-top while making ingress and egress easier, I'd be all over this mod. I still have fond memories of my '79 Z28 (not quite Burt's Trans Am) w/ t-tops. :banana

Hey Bruce

What I really would like to do is a coupe with the new roofline we did for the hard top.

We could convert the doors to be "normal", and re-skin the roof to look like the GTX1 hard top. I'd also change the clamshell to have the headfairing forms of the GTX1.
Essentially, it would look just like the GTX1, but the roof would not come off.

Could do the t-tops, but that would be a bit more work.

 

[Cyclenirvana]

Greetings Scott

I've had a number of people express interest in having us do a GTX1 conversion.

We are ready to do it. Just a matter of who is first.

Cheers
Kip

Kip,
Just a little scared to be the first. I like the idea of t-tops. But would want to see someone else's experiment first! Ha.
Your work is excellent.
Scott

 

[cobraownr]

Greetings Scott

I've had a number of people express interest in having us do a GTX1 conversion.

We are ready to do it. Just a matter of who is first.

Cheers
Kip

Kip, was "GTX1" protected as a trademark or proprietary name by Ford, Genaddi, Mark G. personally, or ??

 

[Kip Ewing]

Gtx1

Kip, was "GTX1" protected as a trademark or proprietary name by Ford, Genaddi, Mark G. personally, or ??

The GTX1 trademark is owned by Ford Motor Company.

 

[Kip Ewing]

Seal Development

Work continues on the GTX1 hard top.

The one thing we could not complete before the Rally was the sealing system.
This is a pretty involved pattern making task, and is the last thing to do.
All of the prior design work was in consideration of providing for sufficient volume for the seals, allowing for a smooth transition off the glass onto the door frame, etc. etc.

The process I am familiar with is to model the seals as a hard model first.
This is a bit of a black art, as you have to model a hard part and shape it so that it will compress when it is made out of rubber.

As noted before, there are only two things you can do with sealing systems:
1) try to seal water out
2) manage where it goes when it does leak.

The design for these seals uses a technique where any water that leaks past is directed through an internal gutter and drained through the seal.
This is the only way to do this, since the seal has to transition off the glass onto the door frame.

This image is of the "mucket" that is at the a-pillar. While it is black, it isn't yet rubber. This is a hard model that was painted black.

The blue features are keyed to align the molded detail to the Mustang window seal I am using.

Here, you can see how the molded detail aligns to the Mustang seal.

In this image, you can see how the Mustang seal has a drain channel that aligns to the internal drain channel of the new molded detail.

This last picture shows how the seal matches up to the geometry of the door caps.

This is a load of pattern-making work.
I had six details like this to sculpt for the whole roof!

Once the patterns are all finished, we make molds in a similar way to the door caps.
We'll cover that in the next post.

 

[911teo]

Just fantastic!

 

[Shadowman]

Looks fricken awesome Kip

Shadowman

 

[Kirby Vieira]

Your attention to detail on even the smallest details is inspiring. :cheers

 

[Shelby#18]

Keep it up Kip! I can't wait to see the final product. :thumbsup

 

[S592R]

Kip,

You keep posting this stuff with the detail work that you do, you might just yet talk me into "cutting the top off" of mine yet. :biggrin

Good work as always. :thumbsup

 

[Kip Ewing]

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[Shelby#18]

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Interesting post Kip. It's wayyyy past your bed time. :lol:lol

 

[Kip Ewing]

You have no idea.....

Interesting post Kip. It's wayyyy past your bed time. :lol:lol

You have no idea.

I was too slow to get to my phone when you just called....

 

[Piana]

Kip,
I've missed your updates. How are things progressing? Has the changes been fabricated for us who have already had a soft top installed? Anxious to hear from you.
Tom