Thoughts about the half hood, getting one, installing it

TL;DR a half hood can be useful, see below how to fit it

After 8 months and about 22 000 km with the Caterham, it is clear that it's best enjoyed topless. And I mean the car.

When bad weather is a concern, putting the full roof on is a 5 minutes venture when done carefully. The car is actually covered in seconds when done by two people. After that, most of the time is dedicated to fiddling with the velcro and tensioning the hood sticks with the belts.

Since we’re both on the slim side and, let’s be honest, not exactly tall (I’m around the same height as Colin Chapman), getting in and out of the car is no trouble at all. Even with the full roof installed, we've long mastered the very procedural little dance it requires. Plus, the car has lowered floors and a removable steering wheel, making entry and exit a breeze.

All that to say that I didn't see a reason to get a half hood.

That is excepting on very particular conditions : really hot and overly sunny days. I came to think the only time I would need or enjoy a half hood would be when it's hot outside, with the sidescreens off. As a sunshade, beach-buggy style.

In the months passing, I had plenty of time to compare the alternatives and two options looked quite standard : the original sold by Caterham, or the one offered by Soft Bits for Sevens.

The Caterham one (reference 30V107A) is far from cheap, and features a silly tag that's somehow sewn upside down for some reason.

The Soft Bits' option is about £100 cheaper but requires a pair of boot cover poppers to be replaced by what I would call 'sandwich' poppers, allowing the lateral straps to be popped on top of the boot cover poppers

As I don't like the idea of messing with the originlal poppers, the Caterham version secured with the roll bar fastnerers feels more appropriate to me.

There was no hurry to get one of those, but someone was selling his (new in the bag) for a discounted price. The ad on the Caterham Car Club Facebook group got very little traction, I took it as a sign that it was mine to get. So I did. It just left UK yesterday evening (as of October 31st 2024). Belgian customs services took their sweet time ( 4+ days) and the parcel came in on November 8th.

Installation :

Installation took about 45 minutes. As no instructions were provided, I had to figure out how the straps are supposed to fit.

The lateral straps are attached with eyelets that go between the rollbar and its fasteners. Using only the original bolts and washers badly deformed the eyelets. I solved that by inserting 20mm washers below the eyelets and replacing the factory washers that go on top with 24 mm stainless steel ones (painted black). The bolts have a 13mm hex head and need to be torqued to 25 Nm -as per the assembly guide-. It was a good opportunity to try out the 3/8" torque wrench.

The rear straps are installed by removing the plastic clips, so they can just slide up from behind the roll bar.

Weight-wise it's a 1.475 kg item straps included. The full roof in the superlight el-cheapo bag is 3.040 kg, you literally get half the roof.

In about all aspects, the finishing and materials are the same as the ones of the full roof. Just a different version of the same product. I'm very pleased with that.

I'm also pleased that it does not interfere with the location of the rear dash-cam, which is properly protected from rain and somewhat hidden while having a clear opening just below the lower limit of the half roof. There is little doubt the dimensions are copied from the full roof, especially regarding the height of its rear window.

RainX (plastic formula) was applied right away to the brand new window, then buffed out about 15 minutes later.

Small lengths of black electrical tape were added to the roll bar where the plastic clips are susceptible to touch it.

It's stored in a super cheap bag, see the second part of this blog post.

(a lateral strap with the eyelet secured between a 20mm washer below and a 25mm washer on top)