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Do you feel lucky?

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JPSmit

JPSmit

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6 miles from home - top down, it starts to rain. Not badly but big drops. (it's gonna rain hard drops)

Do you keep driving and hope you make it in time

or

Do you stop and put up the top knowing you could be wasting valuable time.

So, You've got to ask yourself one question. "Do I feel lucky?"
 
If you're in an Austin-Healey roadster, a Morgan, and probably others, it will stop raining before you can get the top up.

As a side note, I was looking up that quote a couple of days ago to make sure I got it correct.
 
mikephillips said:
Of course what governs if it'll stop raining or not is how difficult the top is to put up. Easy, and it'll stop, hard and you'll get soaked....
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:ROFLMAO: indeed the Midget is pretty easy andit stopped.
 
Another factor is how badly the top leaks! The Mercedes R107 top is a struggle but I'll put it up after I feel the third rain drop because I know it won't leak on me. A quick, simple top is a waste of time if you're still going to get wet.

One more factor... can you find a roof (e.g., gas station) to duck under while you put the top up?

And one MORE factor (because I overthink things until the point is moot) -- how is the aero of the windshield at the speeds you anticipate running? Mercedes did quite a job on the R107 and rain really doesn't come streaming around the sides of the windshield. Around 40-50 MPH you get a nice dry cocoon of air.

By the time I get all those factors sorted in my head, I'm pulling into the garage :sneaky:
 
mikephillips said:
But if it does a good job of keeping the rain out at speed, you know that's when traffic will stop, the train gate will come down or that herd of cows will wander into the road...
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One of the saddest sights I ever saw was a guy in a Mercedes pagoda convertible - in traffic - at a red light - in the pouring rain - with a TV in a box in the back that wouldn't let him put up the top. It was tragic.

Ms. Triss on the other hand has a wonderful tight top, she leaks under the dash onto my knees.
 
Got caught in a rain / hail storm in the Herald once with my oldest son when he was about 5. Top was up but leaky and water was streaming in between the windscreen and the roof. The noise make by the hail was just crazy. Had to pull in to a covered parking lot There was just no way to continue with a crying kid, rain coming in and the pounding of hail on the roof.
 
70herald said:
Got caught in a rain / hail storm in the Herald once with my oldest son when he was about 5. Top was up but leaky and water was streaming in between the windscreen and the roof. The noise make by the hail was just crazy. Had to pull in to a covered parking lot There was just no way to continue with a crying kid, rain coming in and the pounding of hail on the roof.
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Back when my son was just a little older than that we had a cr*p mercedes - driving one day and he asks to opne the sunroof. I said, 'but there's four inches of snow on the top of the car.' - he paused, looked up, tightened his shoulders and said: "OK". I didn't :D
 
JPSmit said:
Back when my son was just a little older than that we had a cr*p mercedes - driving one day and he asks to opne the sunroof. I said, 'but there's four inches of snow on the top of the car.' - he paused, looked up, tightened his shoulders and said: "OK". I didn't :D
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One Sunday morning a few years ago, self and SWMBO had just jumped in the car, a 07 Hyundai Santa Fe, to head off to morning Mass. It had snowed the day before, but a lot of it had melted. Without thinking, I reached up and hit the sunroof switch and open the sunroof since it was a nice sunny morning. You know what happened next - Mary got a lap full of snow! (None of it hit me). She was not amused, but I could not stop laughing :ROFLMAO: - which made her even less amused.
 
Not an LBC, rather an Alfa GT Junior with a rusted out floorboard... hit a deep puddle in the street with da 'mits as passenger. Spray from the passenger footwell shot up like a geyser! And her in a dress...

My subsequent comments regarding bidets and suchlike went over like the proverbial lead balloon. :rolleyes:
 
DrEntropy said:
Not an LBC, rather an Alfa GT Junior with a rusted out floorboard... hit a deep puddle in the street with da 'mits as passenger. Spray from the passenger footwell shot up like a geyser! And her in a dress...

My subsequent comments regarding bidets and suchlike went over like the proverbial lead balloon. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
And here I thought she had a pretty good sense of humor... :devilgrin:
 
DrEntropy said:
Not an LBC, rather an Alfa GT Junior with a rusted out floorboard... hit a deep puddle in the street with da 'mits as passenger. Spray from the passenger footwell shot up like a geyser! And her in a dress...
Click to expand...
Ditto except in a Saab 99, I was alone, and the spray hit me directly in the face. I was on my way to work at the time.

Driving through the same rainstorm which had caused that puddle a few days earlier, I drove under a bridge just as a truck drove across the bridge. He sent so much water over the side that it hit my windshield with enough force to knock one of my wiper blades off. Silly me, I thought it couldn't get any worse than that.
 
If you go fast enough, you won't get wet. But when you have to stop - you get soaked.
Question - how come a power top like on my Corvair convertible went up clean and latched without struggling while the TR6 and Alfa tops are almost impossible to latch back up?
 
pdplot said:
If you go fast enough, you won't get wet. But when you have to stop - you get soaked.
Question - how come a power top like on my Corvair convertible went up clean and latched without struggling while the TR6 and Alfa tops are almost impossible to latch back up?
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well obviously because they weren't used to getting rain in Britain. sheesh. 😁
 
mikephillips said:
My assumption has been that the Brits are part frog, they need the rain on their skins...
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I sort of feel like wars have started over that statement. 😁
 
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