MASCOT March - April 2005

Windscreen Extensions for a Roadster

Peter Watts

At a Dutch Lustrum I attended some years ago, one of the Dutch Le Mans owners had made up some extension pieces for the windscreen of his car. These were fixed to the side-screen mounting lugs, with a view to reducing the buffeting and turbulence one gets when driving the car in its open state. I thought it was a good idea, but up until now have normally been on my own in my Roadster, and when driving it open I put the windscreen down and use a fly screen. These direct the wind straight past one's head and it doesn't keeping bashing the side of one's face - much more comfortable. Lately, with Sara on the scene and the two of us in the car, I have been driving with the windscreen up. Sara doesn't fancy travelling behind a flyscreen, and I can't easily fit one on the passenger side anyway as the grab handle gets in the way, so we have resorted to erecting the side screens at times to get a more comfortable ride. I don't like doing this as it reduces sideways visibility, makes it difficult to signal and looks horrible. What to do? Enter the windscreen extension idea.

The pictures show the way everything is arranged. The extension pieces themselves are made from ¹/₄ inch thick Perspex, each piece being the height of the windscreen (just over 12¹/₂ in) and about 5in wide - purely because the bit that was lurking in my Dad's workshop was just big enough to make 2 pieces this size!).

The mounting brackets are cut and filed from 2 in x 1 in x ¹/₄ in aluminium angle. Chromium plated brass would have been nice, but I couldn't find anywhere that sold brass angle, and I have had these in the `sundry bits of metal bin' for 20 years, or more. I acquired them when I was working at the GLC in the early 1980s, designing and building flood defences along the River Thames; they were originally fittings for flood-boards that turned out to be surplus to requirements. Never throw anything away!

The top bracket on each side has had a slot filed into it just the right width to take the head of the 8mm fixing bolt, and the bolt is secured with a washer and wing nut so that no spanner is required for installation, adjustment or removal.

The brackets are fixed to the Perspex using 6mm screws, with countersunk heads, washers and domed nuts. I chose to use a backing plate of thin aluminium sheet to reduce the local stress on the Perspex from the tightened nuts. All the fixings are stainless steel.

Do they work? A good question - I'll know by the time we go off to this year's Lustrum.