Bill,
As a graduate student, I too must store a TR6 in the outside and uncovered
parking lot of my apartment complex on campus. In the summertime my biggest
fear is door dents, as the parking spaces are about 5um wider than the car
itself! Of course in the winter my efforts are spent keeping water out.
I found a Technalon II cover to be 80% effective at keeping water out. The
fabric is nice and thick, and is fairly water resistant. Another thing I do
is keep an air drier inside, mine's called a "DRI-Z-AIR" and I bought it at
a hardware store. Be careful, the juice produced is harmful to paint.
Here's my assessment of the cover for various conditions:
LIGHT RAINS: The water sits on top of the fabric and does not soak through.
HEAVIER/EXTENDED RAINS: The fabric saturates, and water does sit on the
paint. However, even when saturated, the fabric is thick enough that water
will still run off it if sloped. The problem to avoid here is wrinkles or
parking on an incline so that water will pool up on the cover, then leak
through, leaking into your triumph assuming it leaks. (For the longest time
my '6 would intermittantly leak lots of water, I finally realized the
parking lot is sloped, park on the wrong side and the water drains right
*up* the hood, through the firewall an onto the floor!)
WIND: I've heard folks say they don't use covers as it can abrade paint in
winds. Definintely some truth to this for any cover, but I found that
keeping the car clean (cover does this well), and getting a *tight fitting*
cover works very acceptably. IE my cover is tight enough so even brisk
winds don't affect it much. I actually prefer a light wind as this can dry
out a saturated cover in a couple of hours.
The TechnalonII cover I have works much better than the previous cheaper
one I had. Just be sure to get the one custom fit for a '6. I picked mine
up from TRF, I noticed they don't list the custom fit ones in all their
adds, so be sure to ask for it! (The part number for a TRF TechnalonII
custom TR6 cover is P/N TRFCC111.)
Hope this helps,
Steve Myers
'71 TR6
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