Caught in the Rain Stories!

jams · #1 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 10:12 AM

Hi Guys,

Does anyone have a good Cobra caught out in the rain story? I always check the weather before traveling but I am sure at some point I will get caught.

Mike I · #2 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 10:28 AM

Got caught in a very sudden and violent rain squall driving north on A1A over the Matanzas inlet bridge between Daytona and St. Augustine. It was too late to turn back and could find absolutely no shelter at all, decided to just drive through it and that's what I did. Amazingly, I kept fairly dry, only because I kept moving.

So that's what I do now. Unless I'm sure I'm going to be in sustained heavy rain, I just drive through it. So far so good. Besides, it's too much of a pita to put the top on and take it off...

Mike

HighPlainsDrifter · #3 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 10:30 AM

Hi,
2 years ago I went up to Ashcroft for the old time drags, about a 150 miles. Rushed around friday after work to get my stuff together to go there and stay with a friend in his motorhome.Nice weekend, but we left sunday night to come home and the wind blew up and the storm rolled in the Fraser canyon. It's dark, raining like hell and in my haste to go friday I left my wipers on the workbench in the garage.(DUMMY ME) Well I had more water inside on the windshield, wiping it off with a towel, didn't matter, the windshield turned completely white when a oncoming cars headlights hit it, so I had to stick my head out of the side and look for the center line to stay on the road. Got home soaking wet and drilled two 3/8th inch holes in my floorboards to let the water out

Moral of the story; leave the wipers on the car nomatter if they look ugly.
Perry.

Rich · #4 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 10:57 AM

Perry, how about the 5 days of rain (and snow) on the way to and back from Sun Valley? Nothing like being caught out in the rain 600 miles from home...with no top and no heater.

Rich

RallySnake · #5 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 11:50 AM

Good topic,

I've been caught in the rain a number of times over the years.

One of the most memorable occasions was self-induced rain. I was driving out to El Mirage last spring to watch the Land Speed guys do their thing. It was an absolutely beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and I was cruising along a two lane road through the middle of the desert, East of Palmdale. I was the only car for miles and letting it hang out in the upper double digits. The road took a small dip and there was a river running across the road! It was about 20 feet across, but only a couple of inches deep. Lightning fast feet on the brakes only got the car down to about 70 before the water works began. It was a tidal wave of wetness, way up in the sky and then down into the car. I was surprised that the engine kept running, but I was totally soaked. After the shock wore off, I started laughing. It was so strange to be in the middle of the barren desert with not much but Yucca trees around, and be so wet! I kept going and eventually dryed off. The bright red Arntz was later turned into a mostly white car by driving across the dry lake bed. What a day.

Paul

427Aggie · #6 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 12:50 PM

It was kind of a self induced also...last year for the Texas 289 several of us without tops did a 2 hour cruise out to Shelby's ranch...>I can tell you that duck tape will keep the water out of the webers but the fuses and wiring didn't like it at all....

Matt

HighPlainsDrifter · #7 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 12:53 PM

Rich,
I didn't count that cool trip, I had the roof on for the MRS. , keep her happy and I'm happy.

Perry.

Cobra20646 · #8 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 02:42 PM

Been caught a few times..... but the first is the most memorable, at least for the wife.

It was the forth of July, two years ago. The wife and I were invited to her boss's home for a cook out. While we were there, someone came around the house and pointed to some really dark clouds that were forming up in the south west, with the wind blowing in our direction. So, we figure we better get on the road and out run this thing........ so we thought. Got to within a couple of miles of the house and as we come over the top of this hill, we look ahead to see a "wall" of water falling. With nowhere else to go, we plow into it..... all 100 yards wide and come out the other end pretty well drenched from our waists to our heads. The wifes hair and makeup was transformed into something that made me laugh..... bad move on my part, so I quickly looked ahead and finished the trip in silence. Got home, into the garage and as we were climbing out of the car, she catches a glimps of herself in the mirror and broke out laughing....... but qualified her own humor by saying "it's a good thing we were on our way home, 'cause if we were just heading out, you would never hear the end of this"

My fair weather sailor wife now checks the weather every time we venture out...... even for the short ride into town!

frankym · #9 (**permalink**) 04-30-2003, 03:01 PM

in the rain, it's another to break down, and then get caught. On my first cobra, my clutch actuation faded to zero after realizing that my slave cylinder was overextending and leaking a little bit of fluid at a time. My poor dad and I tried bleeding it for about 30 minutes with the heaviest rain drenching every inch of us. That wasn't fun, but it was memorable!

CRZN427 · #10 (**permalink**) 05-02-2003, 12:03 AM

A couple years ago the Wife and I went to San Pedro, about 250 miles from our home in Morro Bay. We stayed at a motel where I put my light duty cover over the car for the night.

We woke up to find that it had rained quite a bit over night and the car, an LAExotics, had water in the foot wells. I determined that the rain had soaked through the light cover and accumulated in the car from the area between the rear deck and the rear fenders where the body slopes forward.

I believe that the snaps on the original Cobras were placed in the position that they are so as to have the run off from the top drip on the body in an area that is sloping off the car.

I got a couple towels, and a coffee cup, and got rid of the water but had damp carpets to start our trip home. As you all know, dampness inside the car, and a good heater, produce a lot of moisture that condendses on the inside of the windshield. I always kept an old windshield wiper blade in the car to act as a squeege to wipe off the mist. That kept us going that day.

We started home and ran into one of the worst rain storms on the coast in several years. We drove to Ventura in torrential rain all the way. We stayed fairly dry, I had a top that I made, but the foot wells filled up with water again. My feet were soaked, my wife had to hold her feet up to keep them out of the water. I pulled into a parking garage at the Double Tree, where we had lunch, and bailed out the foot boxes again.

I assumed that the water was getting in the car from the same point that it had when it was parked, there was nothing I could do about that at the time.

We continued home in more torrential rain. This was the storm that caused several mud slides in the Mussle Shoals area and we were driving by about when that was happening.

The rest of the trip was the same, we probalbly traveled 240 miles, of the 250, in the heavy rain. The foot wells were full of water again when we got home, and my wifes legs ached from the effort to keep her feet dry.

After a couple days of a fan blowing over the carpets they seemed to dry out. There was no apparent permenant water damage.

Later I found that the fiberglass joint between the rear inner fender liners at the back of the cockpit, in front of the rear tires, was not completely bonded to the under side of the body and the rain was getting in the car from there. I put a coating of resin over the area and never had it leak again.