candlelit

iTrader: (21)

Just curious, may have to get out of the ttop cars so I can continue my tornado chasing days. Last year we ran with a hardtop SUV so no worries about it.

So, how much damage has hail done to your ttops?

dc4bill

iTrader: (1)

hmm im curious about the same im from FL and recently moved to OK last yr hail F'ed my integra up and put a small crack in the sunroof so im lookin for answers to

ItsNotStock

iTrader: (24)

Small hail is fine. The t-tops are alot stronger than some might think. I remember reading a newspaper article a couple of years ago involving a roll-over and a t-top Camaro . The t-tops ended up intact. If you aren't seeing golf ball size hail then don't worry about it. The hail is more likely to dent your hood first than your t-tops. If you are paranoid slam a blanket stretched over your t-tops into your doors.

Slvr00Bird

iTrader: (2)

They're tempered glass and extremely tough.. if you had a smooth surface, you could drop them and they wouldn't break or be damaged.. however, a small rock or anything sharp like that would cause them to explode if you dropped them on it..

ghardester

To add a little, tempered glass is 7 times stronger than regular glass. It's weakest spots are the edges. You can hit a piece of tempered glass pretty hard before it will break. But if you take a peice of temp glass and set in on edge without cushioning, like on a concrete floor, any little nick in the edge will cause the whole thing to sort of explode. You can think of it as if the outside skin of the glass were shrunk and keeping the whole thing under pressure.

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

I hope to God you don't go tornado chasing in a 6 speed Firehawk/SS...

x2 about the hail denting the hood before damaging the T-tops, and the blanket.

Gotta love the SMC hardtops... I drove through hail once in the Snoqualmie pass at night and I was only worried about my quarterpanels and hood getting dented (aside from sliding off the road and dying). Thankfully nothing got dented and I didn't die.

Vogos97c5

iTrader: (6)

When I had my 98 Z28 it was in a hail storm. The hail was marble size with some being larger than that. It dinged up my hood pretty bad, and had a few marks on the quarter panels. T-tops held strong. It was hitting the car hard enough to keep setting off the alarm, it was pretty crazy. You're going to be doing body work before replacing t-tops if you're in a hail storm.

nrs2420

iTrader: (2)

Tornado chasing is awesome, except I don't know what I'm looking for. I did it a couple times last year but took the girlfriends car.

Just like others have said, the body will dent before the tops break.

candlelit

iTrader: (21)

thanks for the replies everyone!

my tornado chasing wouldn't involve the Firehawk or SS, it'd be a less collectible f-body.



tornado chasing... look for warm-moist areas colliding with cold dry air. rain/severe weather is key because it tends to stronger downdrafts & updrafts affecting the stable environment around. look for outside clouds spinning around, this leads to rotation (such as a wall cloud). if you ever hear meteorologists talking about strong mesocyclone strength then things will get interesting!

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

Good luck man, hope ya can handle an F-body in high winds mixed with rain/hail/cows... LOL. If you're really nervous about the glass, you could always find a hardtop Z28 for cheap.

nrs2420

iTrader: (2)

I'll have to remember that. We really don't get that much tornado activity right here in St. Louis, but I tried a couple times to find some stuff in Illinois.

Good luck on chasing.

wht01ws6ta

iTrader: (45)

Tornado chasing in a LS1 Fbody sounds like it could be fun!

That's interesting about the T-top glass strength. I always figured they were pretty strong for being made out of glass but didn't give it a whole lot of thought.

Striped02WS6

iTrader: (6)

i dont know if a fbody is the best choice for a tornado chasing vehicle...i mean lets get serious here...more then likely a tornado is going to come down in a rural area with unimproved roads....what are the advantages of an fbody....its fast? that doesnt count for **** when you are on a muddy road or a gravel road or even a wet paved road...the fbody has poor visibility to the rear for the driver (compared to other vehicles) and if SHTF and you MUST go off road to save you and your crew and fbody will make it about 10 feet into a damp (insert crop) field....stick to a 4WD capable vehicle with good 360 degree visability....

jeremy02

Hahahaha...I don't think tornados exactly PICK rural areas to land in. I'm pretty sure they just randomly touch down.

candlelit

iTrader: (21)

actually these kind of road conditions happened to us on our last journey. fortunately I was driving an AWD suv and was able to get through the muddy red dirt. but you do have a good point because the areas I spot do have a lot of gravel/dirt roads, for example this is a picture of a dry road before the storm hit it (last May):



7-10 minutes later turned into a mile wide wedge tornado, the rain was so heavy we nearly got stuck in an AWD vehicle:

ads_99ta

wow. you're entirely wrong here. you know damn well my car made it at least 50 feet into that cornfield before getting stuck about 4 years ago. and didn't you have to run from a tornado when you had that camaro?

98TAjwh

iTrader: (4)

i saw a hail damaged G8 for sale on ebay that had hail damage. damn thing looked like it had been through a meteor shower, all the glass was busted out and there were softball sized dents all over it. that would answer your question for a worst case senario. regular golfball sized hail and smaller would not be that bad and i don't think it would break your t-tops.

UTfan01SS

iTrader: (1)

I feel like a dumbass for posting this but just to show how tough those t-tops are last spring I had the tops out cruising some backroads. Well I pulled over and put the tops back in before getting on the interstate because I didn't feel like being beat with the wind at 80mph all the way home. So I get on the entrance ramp and mat it slamming the gears, had to be over 100mph by the time I reached the interstate. The next thing I know I hear this loud rush of wind and notice my drivers side t-top flying across the interstate bouncing across the grass in the median. I was sick to my stomach, forgot to latch it down. I turned around at the next exit and found my t-top thinking it would be destroyed. Actually it didn't put a scratch on the damn thing. Had some grass and dirt on it but other than that it wasn't damaged at all. That is one tough *** t-top to bounce across the median at 100 mph. I think they could take a hail beating, though I wouldn't want the rest of the car to.

wht01ws6ta

iTrader: (45)

^^ha ha great example of how tough they are

ads_99ta

UTfan you were very fortunate. if it makes you feel like less of a dumbass i did something similiar and the driver's side t-top flew out on the interstate and hit a fence. went back to get it hoping it would still be intact but it was nothing but a pile of black glass.