Cobblecrazy, I hope you don't mind my continued posts in this thread. You had a lot of information and pictures running so I've just been adding my experience to it.
Yesterday my wife and I went camping at Cape Lookout on the Oregon coast. We were right on the beach, just behind a 20' tall sand dune. Heavy, constant rainfall and 30+ mph winds hammered is all night and morning. The best I could find for daily rainfall total was 1.25" today. We expected to get a little water blowing in, but it wasn't bad. Our friends were next door in their new travel trailer getting rocked pretty hard also.
We slept well, plenty warm as usual, as we listened to the rain falling. The soft sides flapped a little on occasion, but it was minimal and the top as a whole was sturdy. We woke up around 8am, still heavy rain and strong wind. My wife slept on the windward side and said that the sleeping bag was a little damp on the outside edge. There was a little bit of water that slipped between the fabric and the fiberglass top. It pooled a little under the cushions but didnt soak in.
No big deal, I lifted the cushions and dried underneath. My wife jumped out of the jeep into about 4" of standing water and went into our friends trailer while I closed the top. Being that the rain and wind were so intense I wasn't able to dry off the outside so I just closed it up. When I stepped outside I saw that at least two camp sites were abandoned with collapsed tents, chairs thrown about with no cars around. Looks like the tent campers bailed in the night for a hotel.
Inside the trailer, towels were stuffed under windows and there was water on the floor under the roof vents.
We were glad not to be tent camping last night! I also don't miss the fear of water leaking into my wood framed truck camper. Once I got back home I opened up the camper and found that the cushions were just a little damp, so I removed the foam and I'm letting them air out. I checked the screws that hold the soft sides to the "floor" (essentially the seal) and found a few stripped screws, a few that were just plain loose, and a lot of them that I just gently snugged up by hand (probably just natural loosening from settling in). Hopefully this helps a little in the future but otherwise it held up very well. Constant driving wind and rain will blow past most seals anyway. I will say, I was again very grateful for this top vs my other option. The j30 seals up much better if you tend to camp in terrible weather.
My wife has now expressed interest to join my on my extend trip into Utah, Arizona and Nevada. It's causing me to revise my simple plan of packing for only myself. Now I've got to condense my gear and find out how to make it livable for both of us for and extended amount of time. I'm revisiting the idea of removing the rear seats for the trip and building a "flat floor" for more usable space, and an "out of the way" spot for tools and recovery gear. Probably nothing fancy, just a one time basic platform with some tie downs, I'll have some time to experiment, and it may result in a couple more driveway or close to home camping trips to test things out.
