What will the new redesigned hardtop look like?

[King Luis]

Leaky roofs could be tied to the quality issues with it currently. Thicker material could prevent seepage and better finishing on the edges could help seal the edges better. With Ford behind the wheel of this with many vehicles waiting to be sold, i see them making sure it gets done right.

regarding the cardboard, i've seen server cabinet corners come off pallets with cardboard protecting them. the card board was super strong, could probably hit a baseball almost as well as a wood bat.

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[Dads_bronze_bronco]

This best describes what I think my MIC top is made of. Some aircraft use skinned Kevlar panels. They use what appears to be huge temperature modifying presses to draw panels.
https://www.rockwestcomposites.com/blog/why-you-should-be-using-sandwich-panels/

https://www.rockwestcomposites.com/shop/plates-panels-angles/sandwich-panels

Here’s another:

 

[Efthreeoh]

This best describes what I think my MIC top is made of. Some aircraft use skinned Kevlar panels. They use what appears to be huge temperature modifying presses to draw panels.
https://www.rockwestcomposites.com/blog/why-you-should-be-using-sandwich-panels/

https://www.rockwestcomposites.com/shop/plates-panels-angles/sandwich-panels

From what I have read about the Bronco top is Ford decided to make two different sectional tops, the MIC and the Modular. The MIC seems to use a plastic panel sandwich construction out of a thermoformed plastic where the outer and inner shells are injection molded, then bonded to a plastic honeycomb inner structure for stiffness and to keep the panel weight low. I had previously thought the MIC top used what's called sheet molding compound (SMC). I've since learned the Modular top is constructed of SMC. SMC is a thermosetting plastic composite.

SMC is now a long-used plastic material used in the automotive industry for numerous body panel applications. The Pontiac Fiero was the first use of SMC for high-rate automobile body panel production. Since the early 1980's SMC has grown to wide use in the industry. It is lightweight, corrosion resistant, easy to produce at an effective cost point, and provides an excellent painted surface quality that matches well with steel and aluminum panels. I think that is why the painted Modular top uses SMC.

I think the MIC top was meant to be a lightweight less-expensive alternative to a painted Modular top. Themoforming plastics hold color well (hence the term Molded In Color) for those customers who are routinely remove the top and store it. Themoforming plastic parts are formed with several different techniques. It sounds like the Bronco MIC is constructed of injection-molded panels that are then made into a sandwich panel. It now appears the design of the MIC was a high-rate production engineering overreach. While there are numerous high-temperature resistant plastics used for thermoformed products, all of them are susceptible to "heat reforming". I have to question the use of a thermoformed plastic in an automotive roof application. It's a tough engineering challenge.

I would have tried injecting the cavity between the MIC panels with a structural thermosetting foam as a replacement for the honeycomb as a quick fix to see if it would work.

I'm sure MIC top 2.0 will be much better. Too bad Ford and Webasto found out too late.

 

[KEM IA]

More seriously, I'm in the Northwest. I'm not playing around with rain coming into my closed truck. Any leaking at all and it's a trip to the dealer to demand warranty satisfaction. That's likely a problem with individually crappy tops, and not a design flaw in all of them.

Incidentally my Mustang was leaky when I first moved here, too. FoMoCo took care of it.

Do you mean MoFoCo. Lol

 

[Rlack75]

They won’t even admit that’s a problem, much less provide a solution.

What about the popcorn sound?

I often wonder if that’s what we heard in the very early MOAB videos?

 

[ICUGAZN]

Here’s another:

thanks for the video. Very enlightening.

 

[Baddie64]

I wonder what changes were made to allow roof racks on 4 door squatches.

 

[Efthreeoh]

Do you mean MoFoCo. Lol

Yeah, that bugs me; people shorting Ford Motor Company to FMC. FMC is Food Machinery Corporation.

 

[Marrowthirst]

My friend told me today "I think Ford put too much effort in the planned obsolescence algorithm. I thought things were supposed make it off the show room floor first before everything fell apart."

 

[Boxer4]

Here’s another:

Good video- thanks

 

[Virtual-Chris]

From what I have read about the Bronco top is Ford decided to make two different sectional tops, the MIC and the Modular. The MIC seems to use a plastic panel sandwich construction out of a thermoformed plastic where the outer and inner shells are injection molded, then bonded to a plastic honeycomb inner structure for stiffness and to keep the panel weight low. I had previously thought the MIC top used what's called sheet molding compound (SMC). I've since learned the Modular top is constructed of SMC. SMC is a thermosetting plastic composite.

SMC is now a long-used plastic material used in the automotive industry for numerous body panel applications. The Pontiac Fiero was the first use of SMC for high-rate automobile body panel production. Since the early 1980's SMC has grown to wide use in the industry. It is lightweight, corrosion resistant, easy to produce at an effective cost point, and provides an excellent painted surface quality that matches well with steel and aluminum panels. I think that is why the painted Modular top uses SMC.

I think the MIC top was meant to be a lightweight less-expensive alternative to a painted Modular top. Themoforming plastics hold color well (hence the term Molded In Color) for those customers who are routinely remove the top and store it. Themoforming plastic parts are formed with several different techniques. It sounds like the Bronco MIC is constructed of injection-molded panels that are then made into a sandwich panel. It now appears the design of the MIC was a high-rate production engineering overreach. While there are numerous high-temperature resistant plastics used for thermoformed products, all of them are susceptible to "heat reforming". I have to question the use of a thermoformed plastic in an automotive roof application. It's a tough engineering challenge.

I would have tried injecting the cavity between the MIC panels with a structural thermosetting foam as a replacement for the honeycomb as a quick fix to see if it would work.

I'm sure MIC top 2.0 will be much better. Too bad Ford and Webasto found out too late.

What does Jeep use? Why didn’t they copy that?

 

[Boxer4]

From what I have read about the Bronco top is Ford decided to make two different sectional tops, the MIC and the Modular. The MIC seems to use a plastic panel sandwich construction out of a thermoformed plastic where the outer and inner shells are injection molded, then bonded to a plastic honeycomb inner structure for stiffness and to keep the panel weight low. I had previously thought the MIC top used what's called sheet molding compound (SMC). I've since learned the Modular top is constructed of SMC. SMC is a thermosetting plastic composite.

SMC is now a long-used plastic material used in the automotive industry for numerous body panel applications. The Pontiac Fiero was the first use of SMC for high-rate automobile body panel production. Since the early 1980's SMC has grown to wide use in the industry. It is lightweight, corrosion resistant, easy to produce at an effective cost point, and provides an excellent painted surface quality that matches well with steel and aluminum panels. I think that is why the painted Modular top uses SMC.

I think the MIC top was meant to be a lightweight less-expensive alternative to a painted Modular top. Themoforming plastics hold color well (hence the term Molded In Color) for those customers who are routinely remove the top and store it. Themoforming plastic parts are formed with several different techniques. It sounds like the Bronco MIC is constructed of injection-molded panels that are then made into a sandwich panel. It now appears the design of the MIC was a high-rate production engineering overreach. While there are numerous high-temperature resistant plastics used for thermoformed products, all of them are susceptible to "heat reforming". I have to question the use of a thermoformed plastic in an automotive roof application. It's a tough engineering challenge.

I would have tried injecting the cavity between the MIC panels with a structural thermosetting foam as a replacement for the honeycomb as a quick fix to see if it would work.

I'm sure MIC top 2.0 will be much better. Too bad Ford and Webasto found out too late.

Very informative. I know that in the aircraft industry they use structural panels with finishes on both sides. The panels are shaped in the flat and then formed in deep draw presses ( guessing 1000 ton + ). I believe the press dies have an integrated heating system to make the sheets malleable. These were interior components and the panels about 3/4” thick.

 

[KEM IA]

Yeah, that bugs me; people shorting Ford Motor Company to FMC. FMC is Food Machinery Corporation.

I guess you didn't understand what I was putting down. MoFoCo translation is Mother F***** Company.

 

[MaverickMan]

The should make it out of mushroom mycellium.

 

[RookieMissSteak]

From what I have read about the Bronco top is Ford decided to make two different sectional tops, the MIC and the Modular. The MIC seems to use a plastic panel sandwich construction out of a thermoformed plastic where the outer and inner shells are injection molded, then bonded to a plastic honeycomb inner structure for stiffness and to keep the panel weight low. I had previously thought the MIC top used what's called sheet molding compound (SMC). I've since learned the Modular top is constructed of SMC. SMC is a thermosetting plastic composite.

SMC is now a long-used plastic material used in the automotive industry for numerous body panel applications. The Pontiac Fiero was the first use of SMC for high-rate automobile body panel production. Since the early 1980's SMC has grown to wide use in the industry. It is lightweight, corrosion resistant, easy to produce at an effective cost point, and provides an excellent painted surface quality that matches well with steel and aluminum panels. I think that is why the painted Modular top uses SMC.

I think the MIC top was meant to be a lightweight less-expensive alternative to a painted Modular top. Themoforming plastics hold color well (hence the term Molded In Color) for those customers who are routinely remove the top and store it. Themoforming plastic parts are formed with several different techniques. It sounds like the Bronco MIC is constructed of injection-molded panels that are then made into a sandwich panel. It now appears the design of the MIC was a high-rate production engineering overreach. While there are numerous high-temperature resistant plastics used for thermoformed products, all of them are susceptible to "heat reforming". I have to question the use of a thermoformed plastic in an automotive roof application. It's a tough engineering challenge.

I would have tried injecting the cavity between the MIC panels with a structural thermosetting foam as a replacement for the honeycomb as a quick fix to see if it would work.

I'm sure MIC top 2.0 will be much better. Too bad Ford and Webasto found out too late.

Do you know why the mod tops were delayed? I had been assuming the problems with the tops were the same.

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