I guess for you guys, it's a bit like, 'when are they finished already?' - but for us, it's a step by step process. There is a LOT to do besides the obvious! The deadline for the roof being on has been shifted to next Friday as we have to drive an hour to get measured up for the canvas (we don't have the sewing machine, the brain cells, or the mental health to sew it ourselves) so we expect maybe two weeks before we see it as a 'pop top' - even if there's more to do before Christmas.

Where do I start? I suppose just when the frame came back from the powder coaters, which is more expensive than paint but durable and saved Jamie a lot of headache. We have a better hinge than the last time - it's designed for trucks and some 50,000 open/shuts, so is pretty hardy, and you'll see how cool it looks when we show you a front view.

The riv nut holes had been drilled previously, so it was just a matter of Jamie fitting it into place and securing it. It's certainly looking like a professional job!

Meanwhile, Jamie primed and sanded the roof. I talked about this last week where Jamie and Murry were constructing it. It's not the usual length of a 110 Land Rover - it's a 130 panelvan, so it's the roof of a 11o with some added aluminium.

Jamie then cleaned his paint gun and painted it with two coats of Raptor paint, a tough and hard wearing paint that's very forgiving to apply and has a little bit of a rough surface. We'd bought it on sale during Black Friday sales so that was a good bargain - about $100 off! I tell you what this time of year is great for getting some bargains for doing a project, that's for sure!

Then on went the gas struts which have been pre loaded for the weight we expect on top. NOW it looks like a pop top! How cool! Honestly standing back and looking at this thing gave us such a sense of pride. It honestly feels like a huge achievement for us, more so it's such a rare thing - we haven't found anyone else with a two door 130 panelvan!

At last Jamie attached the Rijidij badge at the front. See what I mean about the hinge? We reckon it's looking amazing. Although Jamie's been the major driving force behind this, it's Murray who has run with it and drawn a lot of the hard bits on Autocad and machined them for us - even the catches that will go on the back, but we'll show you that in another post. As Murray does Land Rover accessories, he also gets to use ours as a prototype for potential clients who want a pop top, and we're happy to help him bring that business plan to fruition. He plans to make them so that people can instal them as a kit themselves (with instructions) to keep the costs down, and I reckon they'll be massively popular.

What do you think about our build so far? Are you excited to see the next instalment?

With Love,

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