Cool weather top down driving

Stan Galat has one as well, but I think he fabricated it himself.  I believe his is lower by a few inches. I once suggested that he go into the business of manufacturing them, his is very cool. He diplomatically suggested that I mind my own business. He may be too busy to reconsider now that he is building Galat Castle in the newly defined Stanistan. 

Bob, I think he modified one that Henry sent him.  I remember him saying it cost a pretty penny but he loves it. 

Marty what I like about Joel's is that it is foldable and removable easily. I guess it depends on the brackets used. Ray

Yeah, but you first have to get a 2008 911 to steal it from...

And what's this about our "Dear Leader" being as short as me??

Sure looks out of place!

I fabricated a wind screen for my IM, attaching it to my roll bar.  It didn't seem to make any difference in my car.  Very disappointing.

 Since mine was mounted in the roll bar it was located very close to the back of my  head.  I guess mounting it further back makes a difference.

HI    I'm  new here...     i just drive the white one.... 65 degrees F and above

the red one all weather....  See  Solved that for you all!!

Tebs

Froze my ass off back in my Marine Corps days and today Ilike to stay comfortable these days.  70 and up is our minimum for top down.

Top up in the winter with an Espar=comfort at any temp.

 

60 & sunny is my rule. Sunny makes a big difference. If I waited on 70 half of my top down driving season would be gone :-)

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Jack Crosby posted:

Froze my ass off back in my Marine Corps days and today Ilike to stay comfortable these days.  70 and up is our minimum for top down.

Top up in the winter with an Espar=comfort at any temp.

 

I was born in Churchill, Manitoba Jack....butt ass cold in the winter. We were back there again ten years later. The US Army was up there too and I'll never forget the look in the eyes of some of those Southern GI's on a six month winter posting. It was somewhere between fright and hate.   :-)

I can not understand how some people live through the cold...It's fricken depressing!

 

David- I'm a Wet Coast boy, born and lived in the Vancouver area all my life. When we were kids we had family (dad's sister, her husband and kids) in Brandon Manitoba and spent a couple Christmases there. For someone not used to it, it's unbelievably cold! I remember (very clearly, I might add!) playing road hockey on top of about a foot of packed down snow (they didn't bother plowing the roads) with my cousins in -35' weather, and looking around, thinking, "nice place to visit". I was 10 or 11. And yeah, I imagine Churchill's wicked cold for even longer in the year than Brandon or Winnipeg...

Bill- It's a lot easier to endure when you're involved in some sort of outdoor activity, and we ski. Vancouver can be absolutely dreary (just above freezing and raining) for what seems months at a time. My wife and I (before kids) spent most weekends up at Whistler, and it's really easy to get through the week when you know all this misreableness down here in the city is turning into snow; you can't wait for the 2 hour Friday night drive up to the mountain. Things changed when my first child was born; we didn't get up to the mountain at all for years. 

My oldest was 8 or 10 when, one day during a particularly nasty February stretch I was unloading my truck (in the almost freezing pouring rain) for a job and I thought (with much excitement), it must be fantastic up on the mountains! And then it dawned on my- what was I so excited about? I hadn't skied since Scott was born! I got him on skis a year or 2 later and now every thing is alright with the world. Al

 

crhemi (Bill) posted:

I can not understand how some people live through the cold...It's fricken depressing!

 

You got that right.  Do you have room for us? 

If you don't mind a tent in paradise, Come on down!

This is the way: 

Ya gotta love Ed's attitude.....reminds me of someone....

Bob,

Thanks, I think. I remember you asking if I wanted to manufacture them (and thinking about how hard it would be to build and market something at a mild profit for this group of guys), but I don't remember ever thinking you should mind your own business. If I did, I'm really sorry. You sir, are one of the best people I've ever met.

Marty,

That's correct. Like almost everything on the car, I paid quite a bit for something that was perfectly adequate, then proceeded to remake it (several times) into something "perfect". Then I modified it one more time in a way that could not be undone. What I've got is perfectly adequate. I'll make another from scratch someday (and maybe market it for way less than I should)

Gordon,

We're each other's doppleganger. You're short of stature, but mighty in good advice. I'm a gorilla in a gray work shirt, and a cautionary tale for the newbies. It's my wind-screen that's a few inches shorter than the one displayed here. I kept lowering what Henry provided me until I got it as low as it can be and still be effective. I experimented by sticking my hand above my head as I drove down the road, to see where the still-air pocket ended. When I lowered the screen to the point that the air was buffeting pretty significantly about 2-3" above my head, I stopped.

Everybody,

I've had a wind-screen for many years, and it extends my season by months. I can drive top down comfortably in 45 deg weather, assuming I've got the Espar heater cranked up. If I had a full tonneau, I 'd guess I could drive in the snow-- it's that comfortable.

Not getting beat up in the wind is one of the reasons I can cover many, many hundreds of miles in a single day. The ability to have a normal conversation with Jeanie is a huge part of why I enjoy the car as well. The wind-screen makes all of that possible. It's not gorgeous, and I wouldn't leave it in for pictures, but I wouldn't consider actually USING the car without it.

However (and this is a BIG "however"), there is one change that most "full stature" guys will need to make before this thing works. You've got to get as low in the car as you can, and still have good visibility. You want to be looking through the windshield, not over the top. If the top trim of the windshield is in your normal line-of-sight, you're not low enough in the car, and the wind is going to beat you up no matter what you put behind your head. I can't tell you how many guys I've seen in speedsters that look like they are sitting on a pile of phone books, and are looking over the top of their windshield while driving.  If you are over 5'10, or if you have a long torso: the standard speedster seats are too high for you. I don't care if you think you like it, if you want to stop driving after an hour or so-- that's one of the big reasons why.

Getting low enough for me meant buying Fibersteel seats with thin (but quite comfortable) padding and mounting them to the floor without adjustment tracks (because the tracks are over 1" tall). I'm built like a silverback, but am comfortable in a ridiculous little car with an even more ridiculous windshield because I'm LOW. The wind-screen can be even with the top of the windshield and create a still pocket of air under the plane of the two vertical surfaces because I'm under them both.

That's the key to making it work. That's why I'll probably never manufacture them, but I'd love to be in the business of helping guys get custom fit to their cars, like you would with a good suit. The touch-points on most replicas are terrible. Ergonomics is a science, but we all act like it doesn't matter-- then wonder why we can drive a BMW across several time-zones, and can't drive the speedster across a state line.

So, that's my weekly rant. It's about how the car fits, as much as it's about what you bolt on the thing to make it go faster. It takes time and money, and you need to know what you are looking for to keep from buying something you don't want or need.

Any pics of your screen and set up ?  Ray 

OK, late to the party, as usual.  Anywho . . .  If you think up something out of thin air to solve a problem and you think yourself pretty clever for doing so, and then you find out later that somebody else already had the idea and was just as clever, or maybe even more so, does all your independent cleverness really count??  And so it is with the Speedster windscreen.  What I see here is more or less exactly what I have been thinking about for at least three years.  A frame that fits to the top mountings, made of the black see-through mesh stuff that blocks the wind whipping around in a vortex over the windshield.  And so here it is all done, and even with ideas (unrealized) of commercialization.  Well damn.  Actually, I am encouraged, as what I see certifies my concept as workable indeed.  Not sure I'd want to buy an old 911 in order to make it work, but there must be ways to get the material (or useful facsimile) and the flexible struts for the frame  and necessary bits to make it work.  You say Henry makes these??  Hmmm . . .

OK, true confessions: I test drove a Boxster several years ago, and it had one of these screens attached at the rear of its very cozy cabin, nicely integrated with the hefty roll bars.  I believe this was my inspiration.

the old style beetle had a fold up screen that was available, I think there are manufacturers of those style.

Look here at the lexan clear style, not age appropriate ... the lexan that is. 

http://www.topdown.net/portfolio/mgb/

 

or screen ... This is nice too

https://www.lovethedrive.com/c...ctor_1989_to_2005/11

 

If the plain stuff is not to your liking look at this site and it will light you up, even has a brake light up package on the windscreen.   

http://www.kingpennindustries....tDetail.aspx?wrid=10

Caretech-IM posted:

Any pics of your screen and set up ?  Ray 

Stan:

I'd appreciate a shot or two of the windscreen on your car, when you aren't busy building a new house (or is that garage?). 

Jeez, never thought I would even think of considering a wussy windscreen...but driving is the goal this year.

You all should just start wearing scarfs...

Had a factory windscreen on my 06 997 cab..PITA,sold it and just enjoyed the wind in my hair

““ You all should just start wearing scarfs...” ” Silk for sure..

The wife wears a scarf. I don't have hair.

Are you suggesting that we should start imitating your hairstyle?

I should say that the video here ... shows how they install it in a miata which is a very cool way of having tube style adapters attached to the sides of the car and the screen is removable and easily slides in the tubes for holding the screen.  Now if the screen was foldable it would make it easy to store it but then if it fits below the top then you would have choice to leave it there. 

https://www.lovethedrive.com/c...ctor_1989_to_2005/11

It's a rag top deal with it :~)

 

light show for you  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_lmi2Dl4EQ

Caretech-IM posted:

Are you suggesting that we should start imitating your hairstyle?

It's all the rage. LOL

For you guys like Bob Carley who have roll bars, just put the screen in the space of the roll bar.  I added a plexiglass window in mine, using door window channel, and just bent the channel it to the shape of the roll bar (it's designed to bend).  

Cut the 1/4" plexiglass to shape, slide it in from the bottom and then install a stiff glass channel across the bottom to hold it in.  No rattles, evah.  I have pics somewhere (if I can find them - if not I'll take new ones).  It's been in there since the Rhode Island days (14+ years?) and works great.

EDIT - Found the pics

Here is the channel material used:

And here is the glass template mockup (Yup, an early template!):

Here's the channel installed in the roll bar.  It's held in with 4-40 flathead machine screws:

Final fitment with the channel added to the bottom - Wow....This even predated installing the dash cover somewhere around 2004!

And here is the final product with the tonneau installed.  Total cost of the windbreak was somewhere around $30 bucks.  I've used velcro to stick the tonneau to the bottom of the window, and while It's been OK, I may come up with something more effective this summer (it's difficult to find a vinyl glue that sticks the velcro well to the tonneau material).

Wow....That dash look has really changed over the years......

 Anyway, a different approach for all of you "Roll Bar" types.....

Alan Merklin posted:

It's a rag top deal with it :~)

 

I do. This is how I deal with it. 

Stan:

Being facetious about you telling me to mind my own business, however I am trying to do so more than I have in the past. It is a process of learning over time that I don't have many answers and often not even the right questions!

Your windscreen really is a great mod though! 

I'm a fan of the wind in my dwindling hair. Bigger concern is the pounding Florida sun on the top of my head. Hope to have the car back on the road in the next week so I can try out a few hats.

 

You guys are Gay.  I drew the line at a power heated seat and a matching roll pillow.

ATTENTION:

  I want to invite all you cold weather living SOCr's  with the wind screen thing -a-ma- bobs, to simply pack your bags and move to California and go SCREEN-LESS!!!

I can solve world peace if you like!!

 

Tebs

Teby S posted:

ATTENTION:

  I want to invite all you cold weather living SOCr's  with the wind screen thing -a-ma- bobs, to simply pack your bags and move to California and go SCREEN-LESS!!!

I can solve world peace if you like!!

 

Tebs

Teby,

That's an excellent plan. I'll meet you down at the surf shack for shrimp tacos after work tomorrow to discuss. Say... 3:30-ish?

Of course, I'll ditch the wind-screen. I'd hate to mess up the vibe with something lame like that. In exchange, is the pool-house available? I'm inexpensive(ish) to keep (as long as you give me a Union 76 credit card, and keep the CB Performance gift card topped off), but my wife says I make a bit of a mess in the garage. I'm sure you won't mind, but I'm planning on bringing my stuff out with me-- you have a 4-stall garage, right? I just need 3 of them. All you need to do is say the word, and I can be your bestest bud-- your Kato Kaelin, if you will.

No wind-screen needed for us cool-kids.

Of course, I don't want to steal the jobs of hard(ish) working Kalifornians, so I don't plan to seek employment once I get out there. Please don't wake me when you take off in the morning-- I sleep until noon or so, and am planning on just hanging out by the pool until you get off. I may need some gas money to get to the surf-shack. Maybe you can pick up a 6-pack of some Corona on the way-- it really goes nicely with shrimp tacos.

This is going to be epic!