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canvas hoods

F

fernz

In Second Gear
i'm thinking of fitting a full length hood to my swb s3 and would like some advise - are the hoods waterproof? and are the sticks strong enough if rolled or is it advisable to fit proper rollbars?
 
My hood was waterproof over last summer. I used Thomsons Waterseal on it. It takes more that you might think to do it. I struggled to do a 88 full canvas with 1 litre that I happened to have.

Hoops won't protect you much in a roll. Not sure that hardtop offers a high standard of roll over protection either though. Depends on your attitide to whether you forsee yourself rolling it.
 
A hard top grants a slightly greater resistance at collapsing if all the vehicle weight was put onto it, but both crumple quite easily.

However, even by a vehicle just landing on its side the sticks get bents awfully a lot. :eek:
 
Have a canvas hood on mine.. I added a roll over bar farily quickly :) Its not brillient and only bolts onto the cappings, but will offer much better protection than the hoops.
 
Is that an MOD roll over bar you have Satancom? Because the description you gave makes it sound like it is.
 
Couldn't find a MOD one when I needed one, that would have been the best solution for me. Mine was froma firm that had a stall down in sodbury in 2005, Similar design but also has an arial mount and four spot lamp mounts :)
 
I've had a full canvas tilt on mine ever since I got it. The original canvas finally began to leak through so I bought a new one five or six years ago. Water gets in around the doorseals as they are knackered but nowhere else. I think tilts can be more watetight than hardtops.

The downside is poor security but, thats not too much of a issue for me, and next to zero roll protection. I wouldn't want to roll a hardtp either!

The upside? Fun in the summer.

It's all down to risk analysis. If are going to increase the risk of tip over by how you use it, fit a roll bar/cage. If tip over is unlikely, the need is reduced.
 
I'd agree with Gripper. I have both hard and soft tops, and the difference in water tightness is un-noticeable in practice. I use the hard top in winter and soft top in summer, and the only problem I've had with it was entirely self inflicted... I folded and stored the soft top before it had completely dried out, with the result that when I unpacked it in the spring, it was a bit mildewey, and started to leak. Doh!! Quickly fixed with Thompsons Water Seal though, although as Fergie suggested, you need more than you think. From memory I used the whole of a 4 litre can!

Security can be an issue if you keep stuff in the back. However, I owned a completely knackered old heap of a Series IIa in Wandsworth in London for about 2 years. That had a soft top, and I drove it and parked it all over London with the back rolled up, without any problems at all, (except for someone chucking a fag-butt on the roof one night... probably to see if it caught fire... it didn't). Mind you, that old heap didn't have any door locks either, proper farmer spec, and you could turn on the ignition with your thumb-nail!!

And as others have commented, I wouldn't want to roll a soft top, but then I wouldn't fancy doing that in a hard top. Neither offer much protection, but I don't plan to roll mine, haven't come close to it yet, and only do 3,000 miles a year in it, so it's not an issue. But if you do serious off-road work, or do lots of miles in one, then fit a roll cage.

I would go for it! Remember that if you are expecting a few good sunny days, you can take the top off completely, take off the door tops, and fold down the screen. Proper wind-in-the-hair motoring, fantastic fun (but remember that bluebottles, horse flies and bumble bees seriously sting at anything over 40mph!!).

Hope this helps,
Effortless.
 
great response thanks! i fit into the low mileage/occassional off roading category and will go for the sticks and canvas. i guess the next question is where is the best place to buy? and what price should i expect to pay? i've currently got truck cab and williams canopy which will help offset the costs.

what a great forum! stumbled across it yesterday so its great to find so much knowledge and enthusiasm in the one place!
 
fernz said:
great response thanks! i fit into the low mileage/occassional off roading category and will go for the sticks and canvas. i guess the next question is where is the best place to buy? and what price should i expect to pay? i've currently got truck cab and williams canopy which will help offset the costs.

what a great forum! stumbled across it yesterday so its great to find so much knowledge and enthusiasm in the one place!
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Fit a roll bar mate. I was in the back of a S3 LWB on the road, (before it was a proper road) from Port Stanley to Mount Pleasant in the Falklands. We went down the ditch at the side of the road and turned over. I and some others got thrown out, but the driver died. Not trying to scare monger you, but you have no protection at all without one. A hard top during a "slow" roll will afford some protection, but hoops and canvas as you would expect, just fold. There are thousands of people out there that drive rag top LRs and will probably never have an accident, but the problem with accidents is that you dont know when they will happen. I intend to get a hoop set and canvas for mine, but before I do that, a roll bar will be fitted. The above as you can imagine is a very biased opinion.:)
 
Borderterrier said:
but the problem with accidents is that you dont know when they will happen.
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This was the theory behind mine, I do some green laning, but nothing to rough.. And maybe 3000 miles a year in it. However I do a lot of driving for work and can not rely on the other idiots on the road not to hit me. I have seen to many accidents that were unavoidable.

If you roll ot green laning it will usualy be more gently and just flop onto its side.. But if you roll it on the road your probably going much faster! A Simple Ex-mod roll over hoop is fairly cheap and easy to fit, you wont loose any load space and it may just save your bacon :)

Personally I have never rolled a car, but have been in enough bumps to know anything is possible!
 
The roll bar thing. I have owned an MG Midget for 20 years. It usually had a roll bar fitted, a cheapo when I bought it then a proper FIA type later.

It was my everyday car, covering up to 20k miles a year. I also hillclimbed and road rallied it so figured the roll bar was essential. When it was not fitted it was always in my mind "should the worst happen" Mind you, turning one of these over is very hard to do. I know, I've tried hard and failed.

The Landy potters around and being a 2 1/4 diesel couldn't pull a chicken off its' nest, so speed is not an issue. My risk assesment suggests a roll bar is not needed. But it could be.......
 
Gripper said:
The roll bar thing. I have owned an MG Midget for 20 years. It usually had a roll bar fitted, a cheapo when I bought it then a proper FIA type later.

It was my everyday car, covering up to 20k miles a year. I also hillclimbed and road rallied it so figured the roll bar was essential. When it was not fitted it was always in my mind "should the worst happen" Mind you, turning one of these over is very hard to do. I know, I've tried hard and failed.

The Landy potters around and being a 2 1/4 diesel couldn't pull a chicken off its' nest, so speed is not an issue. My risk assesment suggests a roll bar is not needed. But it could be.......
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And it's the 'could be' that counts. As I said in the earlier post I am biased due to the bad experience I had, but in that instance a roll bar/cage would have saved an individual's life. For the record, we were not going that fast either.
 
When I say much faster, your usualy doing no more than 10mph when green laning.. but on the road even a diesel will get up to 50. If someone pulls out of a side road into you, or you swerve to avoid someone an catch the curb wrong, your going over.

Its imply a risk though, for the cost of a cheap roll bar I think its worth, although it does depend on the look your going for! I wouldn't put one on a road going series 1 for example!
 
I concede, you do not have to be going fast to roll, nor does going slowly ensure you do not have an accident.

Borderterrier, I understand your issue.
 
does anybody know if fitting a roll bar/cage increases the cost of the insurance.

l only ask as a friend back home fitted a cage in his nova. appar his insurance company put his cover up because they said he was now a higher risk case because people feel invincible and that no harm will come to them in crash because of the cage and that now he was more likey to crash.

surely extra driver protection would reduce policys???
 
Its along the lines that your putting a bar on there as your doing something that may cause it to roll.. Either way it did not effect my insurance but the parabolics and bench seat put the insurance up £25 a year!
 
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