Making a Draft Excluder

[BigCol]

In this thread on Wanted, I suggested the poster who was seeking a draft excluder, might make his own rather than buying a commercial one as I felt the result was much neater, much better and much cheaper...

I offered to provide destructions and have since had a few messages, so thought there might be a benefit in posting something for a wider audience.

So this is what I did, pretty simple really...  

First I put a large sheet of cardboard against the rollbar and drew around the inside edge to get the necessary shape for the wind deflector.

I then bent some aluminium tube (from B&Q) to this shape - needed a couple of joints as the length I had wasn't sufficient (best these are on the top edge)

I then wrapped the frame with black insulation tape (guess could paint or leave bare but my car is black or coloured - no chrome etc!)

I then masticked (could glue but the black mastic worked well) some fly screen mesh (available by the metre online) to the tube and trimmed once dry/set.

Fixings are simply cable ties (need to cut the mesh carefully to allow then through) - two at the top one low on each side.

Cost circa £10 and an hour or so's effort and the result in my opinion is much neater and significantly better than commercially-available alternatives:

http://i1366.photobucket.com/albums/r765/BigCol911/fe00f5bd0916b08b123a6d03591c855d_zps0nbjoyt7.jpg

I got the idea from one made by Ian James (SM25T).  His is a bit more upmarket and involved sewing and stuff I can't do!  

You might be able search and find some info as am pretty sure both of us have offered the above advice previously!

Best of luck...

[JonL]

Thanks BigCol. What did you do to join the lengths of aluminium tubing? Did you just wrap these together with tape?

 

[SM25T]

Nice job Colin

[Wrightpayne]

On my 'to-do' list after seeing SM25T's 

​Ian

[MadCat52]

Made my own (see https://www.lotus7.club/forum/chitchat/help-anyone-welding-gear-caterham-area).

To be honest, although happy with the build, I was disappointed with the results as found minimal reduction in buffeting - placing my hand around my head whilst on the move to detect the airflow suggests the airflow/backwash from the turbulence caused by the windscreen isn't coming from behind the car as first thought, but coming down before it reaches the draft excluder.  It could be that the long cockpit/SV configuration doesn't lend itself to this positioning and I need to think about something much closer to the headrests ... or drive faster ... or go aeroscreen  

Bob

[David Brown]

This is also on my todo list. Interestingly I replaced my standard car with lowered floor last year with a CSR260 with lowered floor and feel that it has far less draught than previous with a draft execluder. Can't understand as cockpit is bigger. 

[BigCol]

JonL said What did you do to join the lengths of aluminium tubing? Did you just wrap these together with tape?

I found a short piece of nearly-big-enough rod which I wrapped with tape to bring to size and jammed in either end plus a bit of glue...  covering the whole frame with tape and the joint being at the top near the cable ties means it keeps its shape.

[BigCol]

MadCat52 said or go aeroscreen 

Despite making the deflector, that's what I do more often than not!