Full boat tail on a Matrix

[Weather Spotter]

Yes I am a weather spotter, I get very few storms to chase here
I also do cocorahs (daily precipitation reporting)

I have a bad feeling that the tail would not hold up to storm chasing right now. It would leak like a sieve. More things to do when it gets over 40F (I am closer to -40 right now )

[KITT222]

Nice! Yeah, it's too cold to do much right now. I can't get out to get my block heater working because it's too cold! Not much a fan of winter. The Vibe isn't one either.

[Weather Spotter]

I ordered a block heater on Sat, wish I had it hooked up this morning. It will be a cold ride to work.

[Weather Spotter]

Well last week We had a very windy few days. One of them I had to take a box to Fedx for my work. As two of us were loading it into my car a gust of wind caught the propped up hatch and flipped it onto the roof of the car. It hit my antenna mount and cracked in several directions:



I talked to the boss and he kindly agreed to pay for a new piece of plexi glass. ($89).

I had on their originally 3/16 but I had to get 1/4" this time as that is all they had. I got it replaced tonight and it is nice

[KITT222]

Wow. Where do you work where you need to put a box that big in your car? Though that new storage space has to be a great thing! The new 1/4 in. plexi should be nice. Better insulation, and tougher than the 3/16. Good to see it is holding up!

[Weather Spotter]

It was an odd shipment. We needed to send some samples to a trade show and needed to send them that day. It was 3:30 when this happened and of the 5 employees it was me and the secretary. My car was the only on that would fit a box 36-40-6".

Yes the space in handy. I like geting long material and not having to open the hatch

[tomauto]

This thread moved really fast compared to most! Congrats on making that tail. Looks like you had some fun in the process

[Weather Spotter]

Its been a while so its time for an update (work has been busy).

Snow sucks!

Every tank since I added the boat tail had at least one commute with 4+ inches of snow These days I watch my tank average drop from 42-43 to 39-40 girrrrrrrrr. It does not help that I only need to fill up every two weeks or 450-500 miles.

A few notes:
1 my back window stays snow and road crap free
2. I need to make a belly pan and fix the transition from car to tail.
3. I broke down and bought a third can of fiberglass resin.
4. in our last warm spell (40-50 F) I coated the whole tail (not the bottom) with 1 or two coats of resin and sanded it for painting. The back, passenger side and top are reading for priming!!! Drivers side needs some sanding and might need some touch up resin.
5. during the last warm spell we had .5" of rain and I only had a few drips in the tail (could not see where the leak was but I suspect it was the foam gasket by the window).
6 also during the warm spell I saw my daily commute MPG go from ~42 to 45.5 ! hurry up spring!!!
7. Last month we had some very windy days, during one of them I was loading a box in my car to take it to FedEx. the wind caught the glass and flipped it up onto the car. it hit the radio stub - shattering it. I drove with it taped together for a week then got the boss at work to buy me a new one. they did not have 3/16" so I got 1/4".





8. I spent $30 to buy security screws to use on the tail. I did not want someone with a cordless drill to be able to take off a few screws and gain access to my car. Now they would have to break something.


I am planning a repeat trip to SC in a month so I should have a good benchmark to get 1800 miles of comparison.

[JasonG]

If you have any break downs in SC or near Charlotte, let me know.

Besides, it would be a good excuse to see the tail...... not wishing you any mechanical gremlins of course.

[Weather Spotter]

I just might be in your neck of the woods in about 3 weeks. I will be heading for Columbia from MI. Want to meet up?