[jakeru]

I investigated the clamshell gap problem, and believe I've fixed it. When I picked up this car about 1.5 year ago, the previous owner stated and provided receipt for some mechanic doing work on the top mechanism (new motor, not sure what the whole story was there). I found the clamshell piece to be somewhat bent and "racked", so it would bind on the hinges a bit.

Undoing this racking was pretty easy after removing the clamshell piece from the car and getting the clamshell out onto the lawn. With clamshell standing up on the lawn one side, use foot and lawn to keep one side of the clamshell fixed, while using hands to torque the other side of the clamshell to change the "racking."

I was also able to bend the clamshell ends wider by using gloved hands and shoulder to press up on one side of the clamshell, while pressing down on the other end with my foot. I was able to fix the gap to perfection by simply bending the clamshell about 1/8" wider. (It took quite a bit of force - about all I could muster! I was originally targeting 3/16" movement, but gave up before reaching that amount.) I used a tape measure to frequently measure the new clamshell width, so I could frequently check progress without having to mount it back on the car. Pic shows clamshell end width before widening. (After widening, this dimension increased from 54-15/16" to 55-1/16")