The British call the bow structure that holds up the soft top "hood sticks" and the soft top a "hood". But whatever you call it, they sometimes need refurbishing or may even be missing. The sticks are anchored at either side of the interior behind the doors with 1/4-28 thread flat head machine screws and are otherwise anchored in place by the web straps.

If your web straps are missing, you can spend a lot of time making trial fittings to get the sticks correctly positioned for the hood unless you know the proper dimensions. So, without farther adieu:

 NOTE: Measurements are mounting screw hole to mounting screw hole

The rear strap section length may vary slightly due to the exact hood stick to body mounting location, the pattern that the hood (soft top) was cut from and individual differences in sewing.

The hood has seams corresponding to the hood stick location. The front stick is spaced by the mechanics of it's attachment. The distance between the middle and rear sticks is 8 inches. You adjust the length of the rear strap to get all sticks lined up with the hood seams.

When you first mount the webbing and hood, do not cut off the excess webbing at the rear just yet. Keep the top erected for a few days to allow the tension to stretch everything. Remove and replace the hood. Check the alignment one last time then go ahead and cut off the excess at the back.

Hood Sticks

On nearly all cars the hood sticks and the screws that mount them to the body are painted the same colour as the car. Some very late TR3A & Bs have had their hood sticks painted either black or a buff (ivory white) colour.

 

Webbing

Consists of a pair of cotton woven straps, each about 38 inches long. A thin strip of glue applied along the cut edges will keep them from unweaving. The cotton straps will stretch a little when new. If you just attach a new roll of cotton webbing chances are you will need to take it in after it the top has been erected for while. One solution is to prestretch them by hanging them a couple days with a weight at the bottom.

TR2s and possibly early TR3s had web straps dyed the same colour as the hood. Some very late TR3A & Bs came with black webbing. All other TRs came with undyed webbing that were a tan like colour.

 

Webbing mounting plates & fixings

Zinc or cadmium plated. In some cases they were also painted body colour to match the bows (They were on mine - built May 1960).

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