Scampered back and forth between several tasks today. The shop was only about 60 degrees this morning, so I aimed my space heater at the canopy and while it was warming up I occupied myself by countersinking the inner canopy skirts, then prepped & painted the inside surfaces white to match the canopy frame.
Temporarily installed the fwd canopy brace then drilled it to the sub panel structure and roll bar. During drilling, I manages to snap off a drill bit in my dotco. The bit didn't break on the flutes. Instead, it sheered off at the threads, leaving the bit easy to get out of the hole because I could just put a wrench on it and unscrew it, but the threaded end is broken off flush in the drill motor, so I'm going to have to drill it and try to remove it with an eze-out. Darn it, but hey, at least it isn't an engine stud or something.
Marked the lower end of the brace for trimming off the excess at a later date.
Assembled canopy latch and evaluated it for fit. As part of that process, I spent close to an hour looking through the various hardware bags for the clevis screw that holds the hook and handle assembly together. Finally found it mixed in with some AN bolts that I had dumped in an organizer tray. Evidently not very organized!
There's a note that tells you to adjust the latch assembly up and down to get good engagement on the roll bar post by either adding shims or trimming off the sleeve t that it rides in on the canopy frame. In my case, I needed to trim off the sleeve by about 7/16" to get it at the correct height. I cut through the powder coat with a close quarters tubing cutter to get a nice square end, then carefully cut it the rest of the way with an abrasive wheel on a dremel. Trial fit indicates that I can probably take another 16th or so off of it, so I'll file it down a little more in a day or two.
The plans have you do all this after you have the plexi permanently attached to the canopy frame, but it seems like access is better and the potential for canopy damage due to shavings and flying sparks is less doing it now. Hopefully it won't cause any sort of problem down the road to go out of sequence like this.
When I drilled the hole in the canopy for the latch post to fit through, I got it slightly off to one side of centerline I had drawn on the canopy. I'm not sure if I didn't get that line exactly in the center or what, but the canopy just seemed to want to fit best with it positioned that way, so that's where I drilled it and the contours all seem to fit nicely. However, I was concerned that the weld bead in the frame might be rubbing on the edge of the hole, so I marked where the suspect interference was occurring, then enlarged the hole slightly with a sanding drum in my dremel.
In Vans original design, there is a metal strip running down the centerline of the canopy and it covers up this hole. I'm gluing the canopy to the frame rather than using rivets, so this strip isn't needed. I'm pretty sure that the handle would hide this slightly oversized hole, and I've seen several slider canopied that don't have anything but the latch above the plexi, but I'm thinking that I will bond on a small aluminum plate in this area to protect the plastic because it seems like it would be really easy to scratch the canopy here by hitting it with something while operating the latch or even rubbing dirt into the plexi with fingertips or whatever. After the plexi is bonded to the frame I will see how high the handle is sticking above the plexi and make a decision at that time.