At the end of June I ordered a half hood from Westfield. It appeared to be a good compromise between the hassle of full weather gear and getting caught out in the rain. It arrived the day before July’s Cotswold WSCC meet so I fitted it that evening. Here’s how I fitted it:

Disclaimer: This probably means it’s the wrong way to fit it!

There were no instructions with the hood and I searched around but couldn’t find anything online. Turns out that’s because it’s reasonably obvious.

You get the hood itself along with these fittings:

These are technical terms I’m going to use next so bear with me. The silver thingies at the bottom are what the rear straps mount to. The silver bolt thingy is what the front of the hood attaches to, and there’s some black poppers. Of the fixings kind.

I fitted the silver bolt thingy to the windscreen – I’d always wondered what the threaded hole was for!

I then started on the back, and this bit I’m not sure is 100% correct. I think they’d be better off attaching at 90 degrees to how I’ve done them but the tub isn’t thick enough for that. Presumably you could fit it to the bootbox but if I’m honest I’m not convinced I’ll be keeping that. Anyway, I got the masking tape out and measured to ensure it was all as central as possible

After removing the tape and riveting on, you can see how it might work better at 90 degrees. However, it’s still secure.

After that possible mistake, I made a definite mistake next! I fitted the popper thing to the tub on the horizontal surface near the arch rather than the vertical one.

This means that the natural pull on it will be to remove it. You can’t do it up that tight. I didn’t make the same mistake on the other side so can tighten that up more. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to how the hood fits to be fair. That may be because it sits over the wind deflectors so is naturally tightened from the side.

With it all fitted I clambered in to see what it was like inside. A bit like putting up a new tent, you just have to go in straight away!

Ignoring the vast amount of crap in the storeroom – it’s not too bad inside. It’s certainly more ‘claustrophobic’ than with the roof off, but being compact in nature I didn’t find my head hitting the roof. Getting in and out was interesting of course. God bless those kick strips on the tub!

The next evening I drove the 40 miles to the ‘local’ WSCC meet. First impressions were life was much more civilised inside. Louder, definitely, but not a lot in the way of wind. I had my waterproof jacket on the passenger seat and it didn’t move the whole journey. Up to 60mph things started to get a bit disconcerting. I could see the rear view mirror moving and putting my hand on the top of the windscreen confirmed there was movement. Not a lot of movement, it was exaggerated by the rear view mirror but movement all the same. Whilst I didn’t have any flapping issues that others had sometimes encountered, the hood was tugging on the top of the windscreen. It didn’t seem to be much of a windscreen mounting issue, though I was later able to tighten the bolts a little bit. Instead, there was inherent flex in the scuttle itself.

Some people make roof bars to stop the hood from flapping. I’ll do the same, to go between the top of the screen and the RAC bar. Only for me, they’ll be to add some rigidity.