Thread: The Roofus Special

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Another ROOF ! ...and a jaguar roof to boot! A 1979 Jaguar XJS to be specific.

It was a donor jag that was bought for the front and rear suspensions. I had planned on making fender skirts out of the roof.



Cut down the middle like I did the tail.

Time to cut. And bend up some new angles. (I made lots of scrap, but got lots of practice with the shrinker)









It looks like crap...too square. Does not flow with the rest of the car.

It fits the curve front to back pretty well though.

On to plan C

The cowl top needed a bigger radius. Time to make more angle pieces.

I dropped the roof panel down. Instead of trying to make the XJS roof make the whole bend, I decided to only make it do part of the bend. I positioned it down lower on the car.

Not 100% sure on the peaks. The flat top dash was definetly wrong though.





The "hood" will butt up to the cowl. Curves actuallly match up pretty good.



(3 of the four firetruck are visible in this pic)



Cowl top will be filled in with cadillac door sheetmetal.

In the pics, the red panel looks really flat. In real life, it has a decent amount of shape and follows the curve of the framework fairly well.

On the subject of curves, do you guys think that the hood and cowl should be peaked, curved, or flat down the center?

I'm kinda up in the air over this one.

I'd vote for flat, but it's hard to get a good mental picture. It's looking great either way. Man, them are some serious I-beams holding that garage up.

Originally Posted by falconvan

Man, them are some serious I-beams holding that garage up.

Actually they are independent from the building. The building has it's own posts.

When dad built the shop, he had the idea that he wanted to get a 50ft wooden boat to restore. He started building a hoist so that he could lift it up out of the way when he wasn't working on it

Those I-beams are actual railroad bridge I-beams.

There is a second cross beam at the back of the shop. They are on rollers so they can go front to back. He has bigger chain hoists, but they are a pain to deal with. We normally use 2 ton hoists for everything.

Wow; that is too cool! It doesn't get much more heavy duty than that.

Nice building! Did he ever do the boat?

Originally Posted by stovens

Nice building! Did he ever do the boat?

Nope. After he did the shop, he lost intrest in the boats...or at least in what it would cost to have one shipped to his house.

It is a great place for working on cars.

Here are a couple more pics that show the overall shape of the body a little better.





I gotta spend a day cleaning up, the shop looks BAD in pics.

All of the sudden, I think rounded cowl and hood tops may be the way to go.

I don't know exactly what this car is, but I love it.

Picked up a pair of 16x4 space saver spares at pull-a-part on Saturday.

The plan is to cut the centers out and convert the outers to be used for use with the wire wheels. I will be converting my 15x5.5 wheels to 16x4.

Going to play with forming the dimples for the spoke nipples using a press. Not sure if I will need to add heat or form it cold.

If it works, these will be the front wheels. I want skinny 18's for the rear wheels.

Found another pretty car to influence the build. Don't know if I like this nose better or not.

That one would be my vote; what's the handle on the drivers side?