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Winter Storage difficulties - comments on out of the box thinking (?)

twas_brillig

Jedi Knight
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It was the last of the nice days today and we went to put our BJ7 into its Car Capsule and - the zipper failed. Tried replacing the slider with a couple of spares with no success. Winter is coming to Calgary starting tomorrow (defined as highs lower than freezing). I'll be chasing zipper slide replacements tomorrow (maybe we did something wrong??) and also looking at portable fabric garages (various problems with our storage space and parking surface will make that difficuilt. Also refer to 'winter is here').
The Car Capsules have been great, as they eliminate the major problems arising from tarping a car: no condensation trapped in with the vehicle, and no rubbing by the material against the paint (yes: the Capsule collapses with snow, but I figure the snow holds the material down so it won't move).
I'm grasping at straws here, and would appreciate thoughts on this particular nutball approach:
- the Healey has a foot print of about 13'x5' (65 sq. ft); a household pillow is about 2 3/4 ft2, and Walmart sells them for 3 bucks Cdn, so for $ 70 I could put a layer of nice clean pillows up against the paint (duct tape them into a blanket if that looks necessary; lay a cloth car cover over them, and then the heavy water proof Car Capsule top 'cover' on top. Any condensation would ideally be absorbed by the pillows and then evaporate when the air is dryer; the weight of the top Car Capsule layer would prevent much movement, and any such movement would be absorbed by the thickness of the pillows.
Calgary is - basically - a high desert in the winter with diddly squat humidity, Chinooks that show up maybe monthly (raising the temperature in 1962 in a town south of here by 70 degrees Fahrenheit in an hour) and suck up the snow but also bringing pretty decent winds.
This started off with thinking of some sort of spacers to keep the water proof layer above the paint for air movement (pool noodles? styrofoam chunks?).
You're entitled to chuckle, but: why wouldn't it work?\
Thanks, Doug
 
Where do you keep the capsule when the car's in it? Outdoors in the winter weather? Sheltered from the storms? Is the capsule inflated by pressurized air? etc.
 
It's outside, at ambient temperature. The Car Capsule is inflated with a pair of pair of computer fans on steroids. It is completely enclosed, with a zipper sealing around both sides and the end, and we've been using three of them for a number of years.. 'Car Capsule' is a brand name so more info can be found on their web-page. Doug
 
What about buying enough Velcro to sub for the zipper? It comes in rolls with self-stick adhesive on one side.
 
Is there a local upholstery shop that does cars, boats, airplanes maybe you could have the zipper replaced? I had a tonneau zipper replaced 25 years ago with a very heavy-duty brass zipper by a shop that does boat covers in canvas, and it has outlasted the original vinyl zipper.
 
the zipper is probably 35 to 40 ft long and the package weighs nigh on 100 pounds. If I was on the coast etc. I'd check with a sailmaker, but I expect that it would be too bulky for a local upholstery shop. It might be feasible to get velcro to adhere etc., but I'm not sure how air tight that would be.
 
Is the Car Capsule like my CarBags in that it has a zipper coming from each end? Or is there only one zipper pull?

Zipper pull replacements and repair kits are available on Amazon.
 
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