All the talk about TR-3 tops reminded me... This suggestion is NOT the best
idea for a concours car, but if you really want the car weathertight, I have
a way to tighten it up. OTOH, you might wish to do this on a "spare" top for
use when it's really cold and/or nasty.
When I was a Senior in high school, I drove a '63 TR-3B, then about 2 years
old :-) I drove mostly on Interstates, about 18 miles each way, through a
Chicago winter, and was never particularly cold (yes, we did have a thread
about this last year...)
Anyway, to eliminate the top billowing out beyond the side curtains and
letting in a bunch of cold air, I cut out the stitching at the front of the
"pocket" in the top material along the area where the side curtain seats.
This is not the outer flap (that's actually just the outermost portion of
the side of the top) that channels rain water over the top of the side
curtain, but the inner one, a separate, doubled piece of top material against
which the side curtain is supposed to seat. The doubling of this material
forms a pocket, and I merely opened one end of the pocket to permit adding a
stiffener inside. I slipped in a piece of 1" (?) x 1/8" aluminum, about 18"
(?) long, cut to fit the end contours of the pocket and rounded all over to
prevent cutting/wearing through the naugahyde of the top. I resewed the
front seam (about 1-1/4") by hand, and reinstalled the top. A little hand
shaping to get the contour just right, and the side curtains had something
nice and stiff against which to seat -- and thus I was able to adjust them
rather tight against the windshield and top. The top never again popped out
over the side curtain, and I never got that cold blast of air, water, etc. in
the face. The modification didn't even particularly bother folding of the
top for stowage in the trunk.
Like the lady in the commercial used to say, "Try it, you'll like it..."
-Karl
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