Jody Levine <jody.p.levine@hydro.on.ca> asks:
>How does the robbins top deal with the top edge of the quarter windows?
The Robbins top is close to the original in terms of how the top attaches
to the car in the front corners. As Jody described, there is a piece of
the top which guides the water to between the door and the fender, away from
the interior of the car. These pieces (triangular flaps) must be folded
correctly when the top is put up. They do not naturally fall into the
right place, so if you forget, you get lots of water in the rain, and
your carpets soak, and the car begins to smell of mildew....
My Robbins top is not exactly sized right in this area, but the missizing
is enough to make me worry about leaks, but not enough to make it leak.
Other issues with the Robbins top:
1. It doesn't have the 'security' flap that is captured by the rear of
the door to prevent the unsnapping of the roof when the car is locked.
2. There is a very thick border on the top that is very close to the
frontmost snaps (only about 1/4" away). Its thickness is so great
that the border pushes the top away from the snap, making it hard
to snap on and prone to unsnapping, sometimes just from rolling up
the window. I am considering modifying the top to make this less
of a problem. Perhaps I can melt some of the vinyl with a heat
source of some kind.
3. As I stated before, the compression of the area of the top that
follows the edge of the window when raised didn't seal as well as
the original, which wasn't perfect either.
>I used to have leaks from the tops of the windows which made a horrible mess.
>There were two problems. One one side, particularly, the door is misadjusted
>such that it doesn't close fully and there's a gap between the top of the
>window and the flap. I have yet to try to deal with this. The other fix is
>to ensure that you roll the windows up *all the way*. This looks funny,
>especially with the top down or the door open, since the glass can actually
>extend past the edge of the quarter windows, pushing on that rubber thingy.
>]However, this gets the glass almost behind the drip rail on the top, and
>is quite effective at keeping water out of the car.
>
>You'd think that the English would design a convertible top that keeps water
>out...
I used to have problems with one of the windows staying up. Cleaning the
grease out of the mechanism solved this problem.
--Joe Gorin joeg@sr.hp.com
|