Sidescreens

[salmon]

Hi,

I am finally getting around to fitting the hood, after it has been stored under the bed in 3 different houses for years!

It is the Dax kit so I have everything including sidescreens but I was thinking of using these Europa sidescreens, from memory I recollect some members have used these.

Buy Cobra Sidescreen Frames Requires Ferrules - CHSG8 Suggest SVCF Channel x 4M Online | Europa Specialist Spares

They look in a pretty basic condition so I am assuming there is work to fit properly, add inserts into the window channel, get glass or Perspex cut etc.

Can anyone who has done this let me know what they did, how difficult was it, are you happy with the result?

Regards
Chris

[StewbieC]

Hi,

I am finally getting around to fitting the hood, after it has been stored under the bed in 3 different houses for years!

It is the Dax kit so I have everything including sidescreens but I was thinking of using these Europa sidescreens, from memory I recollect some members have used these.

Buy Cobra Sidescreen Frames Requires Ferrules - CHSG8 Suggest SVCF Channel x 4M Online | Europa Specialist Spares

They look in a pretty basic condition so I am assuming there is work to fit properly, add inserts into the window channel, get glass or Perspex cut etc.

Can anyone who has done this let me know what they did, how difficult was it, are you happy with the result?

Regards
Chris

Definitely not a 5 minute job to trim these. I'd advise speaking to Dax about the setting of the screens. The two bars that protrude forwards are supplied too long. The top bar needs to be cut shorter than the rake of the screen and the bottom is left proud. Not something that can be guessed! The screens can then be trimmed with mohair or vinyl. I got monsoon to do mine and did a good job using mohair.

[KevinW]

yep, its another £70 or so for the ridiculously priced perspex to go in them..... such is the price of authenticity.
i think there is an article here:

Technical Tips

but I think Stu will be able to comment on some of the extra niceties needed for a nice job.

[chillidoggy]

One thing I remember doing was making a template of the inevitable gap that I had underneath the frame where it sits on the top of the door. The door falls away, and the frame is flat, hence the gap, deepest in the centre.

Then I cut a piece of thin sheet steel, and welded it to the frame, before covering the lot in black vinyl. I then glued a piece of rubber moulding shaped like windscreen rubber, but with a slot, over the shaped sheet steel. It stopped the rain coming in. Well, at least from that area, anyway.

[StewbieC]

yep, its another £70 or so for the ridiculously priced perspex to go in them..... such is the price of authenticity.
i think there is an article here:

Technical Tips

but I think Stu will be able to comment on some of the extra niceties needed for a nice job.

Cheers Kev.

some more info here http://www.the289register.com/stuart/Part%2029.pdf

[StewbieC]

One thing I remember doing was making a template of the inevitable gap that I had underneath the frame where it sits on the top of the door. The door falls away, and the frame is flat, hence the gap, deepest in the centre.

Then I cut a piece of thin sheet steel, and welded it to the frame, before covering the lot in black vinyl. I then glued a piece of rubber moulding shaped like windscreen rubber, but with a slot, over the shaped sheet steel. It stopped the rain coming in. Well, at least from that area, anyway.

When you trim them, it's a good idea to incorporate a flap along the bottom edge of the side screen, that sits on the top of the door as per originals.

[chillidoggy]

/\ I hear what you're saying, but is the flap is that effective? I will no doubt have to refurb my sidescreens at some point in the near future if I'm to use the car, but open to anyone else's experiences in the wet.

Another point, I made a 'nudger' which fits to the windscreen to support the Perspex. I'll have to get some piccys of this stuff.

[Roger Shackleton]

Had my top fitted professionally, but my side screens are a bit floppy in the door spigots and tip in at the top where they butt the screen making the rubber seal useless, could do with a little bracket fixed to the black hood rails to stop it. Has anyone else done this? got any pics ? Not driven in the wet yet, but looing at all gaps from within looks like I may need at wet suit ! LOL. Doesn't flap at speed but noisy not gone over 65mph.

Rog

/\ I hear what you're saying, but is the flap is that effective? I will no doubt have to refurb my sidescreens at some point in the near future if I'm to use the car, but open to anyone else's experiences in the wet.

Another point, I made a 'nudger' which fits to the windscreen to support the Perspex. I'll have to get some piccys of this stuff.

[kdavies3]

Sadly the hoods on Cobra's do tend make the car very noisy, as they trap the noise in the cockpit.
Don't be tempted to drive too fast with hood on but without side screens you'll just balloon the hood damage it's stitching and maybe pull the top bar off your screen, unless you have a screen brace.

I'd love to know just how noisy our cars are with a hard top??

However I've always found running with side screens and no hood can be very effective even at speed.
Much less buffeting, warmer, a little quieter.
I must sort out the side screens for the CCX.

[JonnyT]

I really ought to do a write up of the way I did my side screens. I'll give a short version here. Firstly though having had a set of 'standard' side screens, fitted to a 'standard' hood with 'standard' bows there are, in my view, so many variables on our cars (such as where you position the poppers, how much slack you glue into the front bows etc that I doubt that in anything other than the exceptional case will standard side screens fit. Certainly mine didn't. In the end and after much deliberation I had to extend the legs of the main bow by about 10mm and increased the separation of the split main bows by the same amount to get a decent fit of the hood with an acceptable line of poppers. Ultimately the position of the poppers on the hood is something that can't be changed so you have to adjust the bows to get the right fit. Without adjustment I couldn't get the tension across the hood in the middle (directly above your head).

The Dax sidescreens are a bit 'Heath Robinson' in any event IMHO. It was never entirely clear to me how you were meant to fix the velcro when you were in the car and the flap arrangement at the front, even on the side that vaguely fitted would always lift out and act as a sail at speeds above 40mph. Needless to say with the adjustments necessary at the back they didn't really fit there either but the extra height did mean that you didn't need to flap the outer bit over the outer lip of the sidescreen when inside the car..!

If I were in your position again I would fit the hood and see what adjustments you need to make to what. Then you can see how the sidescreens fit. You can fit the ferrules in the door tops but make sure the front one is further inboard than it might at first seem to need to be so that a straight line from the outside of both ferrules will meet the windscreen. I didn't do this too accurately which meant the subsequent sidescreen manufacturing process was a little more difficult.

As to making the sidescreens I finally got round to after four years! I got a piece of sheet steel from B&Q, I think 0.6mm thick. I made up a bending tool from 2 pieces of angle iron with 4 x 10mm bolts through it. The orientation was _11- if you see what I mean. That allowed me to bend a channel to the exact thickness of the perspex (the angle was the thickness of the perspex) over the top of one piece of angle while the first leg was still clamped. I made various pieces of channel up. I then bent the corner piece, templating each side of the hood. It was bent by cutting successive thin cuts in the angle, bending it round and then welding each cut. I clamped the bend onto the hardboard template when welding so that I ensured the curve was exactly the same shape as the hood. Grinding, welding, swearing, more welding and more grinding got to a nice curve in the end. The front section against the windscreen was then welded into place. The bottom channel is just straight and that is bolted in - the ends being slightly swaged to fit over the end of the downward legs. Obviously cut the perspex to suit and bolt it all together.

At the back of the sidescreen I have a piece of flat steel that goes over the hood to hold in place - this is welded in place before the perspex obviously. This rests against the bow with the hood sandwiched in between. It fits around the curve and extends about 50mm back. What I did with the hood (and I accept I was lucky knowing a commercial sewing machine supplier but you could do it by hand) was to sew the existing pieces of steel in place and close the flap that is on the hood so the flap was fixed to the hood and I only then have about 25mm of velcro exposed all the way round. Velcro was then stuck to the inside of the sidescreen with smelly evostick and you just push the hood to the sidescreen when you are in the car. Rubber with 'U' channel and a flap at the windscreen compresses into the deliberate gap of 4mm left between steel of the screen and the windscreen leg. The crushing effect seals well and a small piece of steel on the inside holds the screen in place against the windscreen leg - the rubber want to push the sidesceen out so it works really well (albeit by accident rather than design...). The same rubber goes along the bottom (superglued in place) but with a piece of soft rubber attached to the flap to provide a better seal.

As I mentioned earlier I had to make up new fixings to go into the ferrules because I needed to make them so that the rod was getting on towards the centre of the screen to allow it to line through with the windscreen at the front and sandwich the hood nicely at the back but if you follow the suggestion above of having the ferrules further inboard this shouldn't be necessary.

Test in rain to 70mph have been very successful thus far! The only thing I have yet to work out is how to do an opening window in the perspex. Any suggestions gratefully received!

In total I would guess that this took me 4 days but the much of that time was spent procrastinating about the design and trying to use thicker stainless steel to make the channels. Once I had bought the right thickness steel, which is more than adequate once bent and fixed into the perspex it became much easier. The really fiddly bit is getting the bend right. I should say that I went down the steel route to avoid mechanical fixings in the corners and of the flat piece at the back to the frame.

I will try to dig out some photos to make this a little more intelligible later!