i saw the Clecos lined up, and thought, if I was doing it, i'd probably pull them out one by one, and plug fille the cleco holes as the main join, rather than welding down the swageline join... then in the next pic, thats what you did, plus some extra punchholes as well.
 
Marty, question on welding.
In the final dressed pics, theres some of the tacks that held in placed while joining.
Since you have the cleco line of plugs as the main bonding, thoughts on needing to fill that joddle seam line as well? Just overkill since its so neatly mated tight, or worth it to help seal between the overlap?

There was some areas where I blew holes in the panel so went back and crept up on them with the welder which looks like I've tacked the edge of the new roof to the old one in the joggler groove.
Answer to the fully weld the gap is definately overkill and risky of warping the panel more, this isn't needed and the panel now is much stronger than the original 1 skin roof. I'll be lobbing a length of filler over the seam but will use sika on the inside seam.

When I started welding I began at the front and worked back plugging every 2nd hole , this also reduces the likelihood of the middle starting to lift. If the panel is going to move (from heat) it's free to do so without causing ripples... It did move about 1mm over the length cause the back cleco was almost stuck in there !!

Spent a bit of time on the coup this rvo, I thought to finish off the front seam at the windscreen. It was a easy one to just trim back the new roofs overhang and shave it back to match the Escort roof. Once happy I simply tacked then together and then spotted between the tacks until the gaps closed up , taking my time and letting it cool as I go..

After that the weld was smoothed back with a linish going lightly until the welds have gone flat, then I done inside the window edge. When done it looked really smooth I gave it coat of copper primer.
After that I thought it's a good time to install the sunroof mechanism.

It's only held in with 4x nuts to see how it's set. I will modify the bracing to add in strength and get it more lined up.

Hello peoples, I'm back.. winter is over and so is the demon flu I had for nearly 2wks. Also September seems there's the most birthdays per capita !
Anywhat, I got a jar on enthusiasm and went in the shed to tackle the next part of the roof carnage.
This green roof is panel is from an old 4dr Rally car I chopped up over 10yrs ago, now it's going to be used (half used) .

It had a bunch of Redback spiders living in the cavities which got me checking my shoes frequently for 8 legger angrys.
Back to the roof, I first measured the cars roof for where to cut it away and then add a decent amount to the donor panel.
Here you can see the chalk string line I used to cut along.

This is the roof cut off the car ready for the new skin to be let in. Kinda looks funny with a panoramic roof hole !


Here's the green roof skin with the cut part off

Next was to throw it on the car and see what needs to be done/adjusted to get it connected on

The rest of the green donor roof went in the next project van..or ute

Over the night I thought it'll be a good idea to make a curvature template for the roof so it's as close to original shape as possible. What I did was find a piece of cutoff panel that goes full width of the roof and fold it 90deg along its length

Then it was curved on the shrinker stretcher

It's only a gauge to check curve on the roof so didn't need to be accurate but I got it really close, this pic is it after an hour making a curve to match the roof on another coup as reference

Then I found out the sunroof panel is flatter in the middle by about 15mm, not a great deal but renders the template not much use ! I'll keep it for the van ute.

nice to see some progress again.
Im sure everyone reading along also has a spare van for storage, and a a round headlight,rched Mk1 alongside it. :)
 
Would they have been steel guards or FG?

Deano, wouldn't it be a grand world if that was the case !!

That mk1 goes back to mid 95 when I bought it for a race car project, obviously never came to true due to a stretched back muscle which kept never healing but I have had a good few years of fixed lately .
Arches are fibreglass and was glued on back in 96.. There's no peeling or delamination and the car has lived in semi outdoors for 12yrs, the Spies Hecker primer is starting to flake off tho. The van is a shed and so is the arched escort !

Marty good to see some progress.
It wouldn't be the first template been made that didn't quite do the job.
But like you say, you put them aside and just hope you remember where you put it.
I'm still working on the boat but will be hitting the Escort again soon.
 

Thanks Mark, even tho winter wasn't extreme this year it's the late finish time from work that stops my shed time. For doing the roof it takes a full weekend of prep and metal shaping which can't really be done in 1hr blocks after work , and then moisture can cause real problems between the seams. Anyways that's not a rant it's how I'm doing the car, if I was doing body work, filler, sanding etc I would've kept going thru the colder months.
The below pic shows the roof front and rear half pushed up with ally sticks to pre-empt where I want it to finish off once welded.

Clamps and cleco pins to help hold the panel in place and so I can lightly adjust the old Escort roof to line up. The old roof was joggled like the front half was. Copper spray thru primer areas to be welded.



I didn't allow enough overlap on the front roof so I hole punched and cut little squares to act as washers as a temporary lock to hold the panels together, a bit like those cheat floor tile levelers !

Today was carefully weld the 2x panels together, this time I tacked the green skin to the sunroof skin every inch or so cause when plug welding the sheet sometimes lifts up, tacking stops this almost completely.

Bit of a mess joining all 3 panels together but it linished back just fine.

This is when I was nearly all done welding, the only part left to weld is the back window seam, this might get done during the week

And the panels all smoothed and primed


Also need to do something with that crinkle at the corner of the sunroof, it's either cut it out and flat it or make a new piece, worry about that later...