One of the things we are missing out on, because of the roll bar is the OEM wind blocker. There wasn’t anything like it in the first two Miatas we owned and we scoffed at it at first in the Emperor, but came to realize it had a great benefit in the cooler weather. With the windows up, wind blocker up and the heat on, we could handle top down cruising in the upper 30’s to lower 40’s for short trips.
No one makes a wind blocker specifically for the bar we have, so I thought maybe I could make one on my own. Using my low tech measuring device (a folding carpenter’s ruler) and my high tech drawing program (AutoCAD) I drew up an idea of a shape. Before cutting out my design from some fairly expensive Lexan, I make one out of extremely cheap cardboard.
To mount my wind blocker I thought a nice way would be to use loop clamps around the roll bar. At first I thought two per side, but realized that was overkill for its small size. But how do I secure the bottom? Velcro is how. I have maligned what Mazda calls carpet in these cars several ways, several times here, but one thing this stuff is excellent at is acting as the fuzzy side of Velcro. It has helped me secure everything from small liter bags to USB drives with MP3s to floor mats. This time a small strip along the bottom of my mock up wind blocker creates a needed third mount point.
Last night, after I had some clamps in hand I decided it was time to see just how well this thing would work. I didn’t want to drive around with a piece of a cardboard box affixed to the roll bar, so I grabbed the spray can of black plast-dip and coated both sides of the cardboard with it. Donna asked incredulously, “You actually think painting the cardboard will make it less…ahh.” “Rednecky?”, I finish for her. “Yeah,” she sez. “Well not on close inspection, but it make me feel better,” I tell her.
This morning’s cool drive to work proved out the shape, it did seriously cut back the cold blow back air on my neck and her slightly lower head. It also showed a flaw in the upper loop clamps. The clamps are vinyl coated and where they were located they hit the seat backs and generated a squeak any time we hit a bump. I’m not sure I can move the loops far enough up to not squeak and have them still in a position to reach the wind blocker. Plan B is some sort of Velcro strap as long as I make sure the fuzzy side is the part that hits the seat.