Home-made Side Curtains for Lemans Top – “How To”.

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Hi, Guy. Thanks for the compliments. The side curtains have ridden along now for 1K miles and have worked out great. I haven't been in any driving rain in that period, but I can tell you that in the light rain I've been in, the air moving around the windscreen pushes most of the moisture out around the window openings and the side screens don't get much at speed. For 40 F degree days, the curtains do make for a more comfortable interior environment. Noise inside is mostly the thrum of the lump up front. The sliding panel is about 1mm less in thickness than it really sould be just due to material I had easily at hand when constructing them, so there's a bit of rattling from them. I normally run the car with earplugs, so if you are in the passenger seat and want to talk to me, you better wait until we stop...lol.

One of the improvements or finishing touches I've added to the screens since writing this "how-to" is a seal at the bottom. I went through two iterations of this with the second being the preferred method. Because the furrels that the screen posts slot into stand proud of the bodywork, there is a bit of air space under the screens that requires sealing off to make the cold days more comfortable. Here's the two iterations:

This method was a copy of the method used in one of the first photos of this thread that provided the inspiration/design direction. I purchased some 3/16" thick rubber sheet from McMaster-Carr and incorrectly specified the hardness. This error presented itself in wild flapping of the seal at speed. I thought I might get lucky in that the air passing over would keep them pressed down towards the body work, but this was not the case:



This next picture shows the second and final iteration. Here I used a 3/8" bulb seal with gripper section for 1/8" material that just slid over the flange of the screens. This works very well at keeping air out and is speed-proof.





- Allen.