Hightop installation

[skills@eurocarsplus]

digging the TT sticker on the bus

kind of missing my A2 days...
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[tristessa]

[suffecool2]

[tristessa]

Porch light: http://www.ebay.com/itm/12v-Waterproof-LED-Awning-...mp;vxp=mtr. I got mine on an auction-style listing from the same seller, managed to score it for $23 shipped. Also available in black.

Hopefully I can spend some time this weekend getting the sidewalls insulated & paneled. I used a scrap section to test with, and it looks like 1/8" Baltic birch plywood will handle the curve between the roof & sides just fine. I've also put a section of 1/2" conduit above the window on the driver's side of the top in case I need to run wires front-to-back in the future.

[suffecool2]

[tristessa]

Conduit is for future wire use if I decide to add things later, I've already run wire for speakers, lights and the fan in the roof vent:

Oddly, when I was vent shopping, the ones without a fan were $35 shipped .. and the ones *with* a fan were $35 shipped. So I figured "why not?"

Screened the windows and built up another layer of 1x2 around them as well. Gives room for the insulation I'm using, plus a place to attach the headliner panel:

Then on to the insulation. 1/2" rigid foam with relief cuts so it conforms to the roof curve, wedged into place then foil tape holding the edges to the wood.

.

I'm heading over to the aptly-named Mr. Plywood in the morning to grab a 5x5 sheet of 1/8" Baltic Birch for the headliner panel. I *should* be able to do it with one contiguous piece as long as I watch the grain orientation. Which means the first stop will actually be Peets Coffee.

Gotta get Bus Work done early-ish tomorrow, heading to an Oktoberfest shindig in the evening. Paulaner beers, döner sandwiches, sausage, kraut .. mmm .

[tristessa]

Had to trim 6" off the end and 6" off the side of the 5' x 5' Baltic birch plywood, but I was able to successfully install it. One piece from the passenger-side window to the driver-side window. The attaching screws , will all be invisible when it's complete, being either under the roof vent trim, on the other side of the forwards/rearwards bulkheads, or under the LED indirect-lighting arrangement I'm working on. It doesn't perfectly conform to the roof curves, but I'm happy with it, and if I wasn't saying something about it here, nobody would ever know.

Anyway, on with the pictures. Looking towards the front storage area:

The rear storage area:

Looking forward/upward from the rear seat:

[chachi]

looks great, hal. who knew you can get NICE ply at mr. plywood...?
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'74 transporter panel
'91 vanagon carat NAHT

[suffecool2]

I like it, it looks great! I just glued speaker carpet directly to the insulation board.
Well I had to paint the insulation board w/latex paint first, thank god I thought to try out the spray glue on a spare piece first, it melted it
So did the spray paint So I used latex house paint, LOL!
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'71 Hightop - rolling resto/customization in process
'87 Golf - tranny's toast, but still runs
'70 bone stock Westy - gone

[tristessa]

So I got a CD-ROM of the pictures Hambone took during the installation last week, but it'll be a while before I can get most of them uploaded. The gallery has a 4MB file size limit, most of the pictures exceed that, and I haven't had time to re-size & upload them since I got the CD .. and the upcoming week isn't looking too promising either. I may just batch-upload them to Photobucket, if I can even find the time to do *that* anytime soon.

Here's one of the few pics that's *under* 4MB -- I'm the goofball with the caulking gun. Two by two, hands of blue:

[tristessa]

So in lieu of the installation pics, here's some of the ongoing interior work.

Crappy picture of the indirect lighting setup for the interior. The LEDs in the aluminum channel are Ikea LEDBERG strips, removed from their plastic housings (I void warranties) and direct-wired together to handle road vibration better. The lighting fixture and curtain rods/wires will both be hidden behind a soffit of the same birch as the headliner .. because I had some left over, so why not?

Temporary light controls and a closer view of part of the indirect lighting, the controls will be relocated when the forward bulkhead is built. The knobs are for the PWM LED dimmers for the inner & outer lights, te dual switch came from the Bauhaus home improvement store in Turku, Finland -- I go on vacation and shop at hardware stores, auto part stores, military surplus stores .. I'm weird like that.

Beginnings of the rear storage area, and another better view of the indirect lighting. Cabinet door was $5 at the Ikea as-is department.

And the most important piece of camping gear is already stowed in the cabinet:

[Xevin]

Looking tip top The Mr plywood sheet panels. They do look nice. I used a sheet to make a new sliding door inner panel. Looks damn near OEM. Looking forward to some updates. Keep on Bussin!

[secretsubmariner]

[tristessa]

It's been a while since there was an update here, but it's also been a while since I got much done. We had some chaos on the home front, but it looks to be resolved now .. hopefully for good. This weekend I was finally able to get back to work on the upper rear cargo area and have it mostly finished off.

Driver's side:

Passenger side:

Door on the driver's side, with a hook I forged doubling as the pull:

Closer view of the hook/pull:

I've got a matching hook to use on the p/s door, but I had a little mishap when cutting that door -- the "inside" layer (inside of the door, not inside of the plywood) delaminated, so it's clamped right now while the glue dries. Should be fine.

Trying a small shelf above the kitchen:

.. and I'm debating whether or not to put speakers above the doors. On the one hand, it's not really usable space and I've got a pair of new-in-box 4x6 speakers with grills in the garage. On the other hand, once I cut holes for speakers .. there's no going back without remaking the bulkhead panels.

[tristessa]

Top installation pics. I decided I was never going to get around to manually resizing them myself, so they were just dumped to Photobucket.

Top in the carport:

Topless bus! Cleaning where the Westy top used to be, that's me on the right in the black shirt:

Lifting it up for the test-fitting:

Checking the fit:

First problem was the Westy luggage rack brackets I'd left on. Side ones were fine, the front ones were interfering. Tried my BFH from the smithy:

.. and ultimately resorted to the sawzall, but the photographer was in the can when we did that.

More fit-checking and marking problem spots to grind down:

Lifted up and set on 2x4's to grind down a few spots:

.. and back down again:

Kirk readying the ratchet straps to clamp it down while the adhesive cures:

Testing the strapping/clamping:

Lifted back up. Fit looked good, clamping looked good .. time to get out the adhesive:

Starting the adhesive:

Bead on the inside of the top:

Spreading the adhesive:

Smeared .. er, SPREAD:

And a bead on the top of the Bus:

We took turns with the caulking gun of adhesive; it's tough to squeeze the gun because the stuff is so damn stiff Handed it off to Justin:

Second non-smeary bead of adhesive on the top:

Adhesive:

Gettin' down to the wire -- the adhesive we used (Evercoat Maxim 813) has a 30-35 minute working time, and we were at 28 minutes:

Hurry hurry:

<plop> into place:

Slide it around a bit until the position is "just so":

2x4 to clamp the sides in at the middle and make sure they contact the metal. Mike's at the front of the Bus on Adhesive Cleanup Detail:

Strap across the front. Didn't really *need* to but it wasn't gonna hurt anything:

Left to right: Kirk, Justin, myself, Mike. I don't think the other three are around this site much .. if at all.

There's more pictures but these are kind of the highlights. Rest of them are at http://s1313.photobucket.com/user/howlingmoki/library/Adventurewagen%20Top?sort=3&page=1 .. including some artsy-fartsy ones that Hambone the photographer took while he thought nobody was looking.

I don't have pics of the sealant/adhesive going on because I was working solo, but if you've ever caulked around a bathtub .. it pretty much looked like that. White goop from a tube, shape it a bit with your finger, clean up excess with a rag soaked in mineral spirits.

[tristessa]

And just for posterity, here's what the top looked like shortly after I brought it home. I'd done a bit of scrubbing on one side and taken out the window but no fiberglass repair, sanding or painting:

[Manfreds78bay]

All this awesome documentation wasted...can the powers that be save this thread?
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1978 2.0L FI Campmobile

1982 AMC Eagle SX4 4.2L FI