Elevating Roof - a self build story

[newfisher]

Sugar goes further than salt. Show up with a 6 pack of cold ones and see how far you get.

[vw4wd]

yippee!!!

Got a call late yesterday from the fabricators to say that that had folded the aluminium and tacked up the corners so it was ready for a test fit.

Went down this morning and three of us lifted it into place. looked really good but needed a final trim to correct the curvature of the front and rear panel where they meet the roof stiffeners. They got on and did that while we waited and a second fit showed it was near perfect.

Left it with them to complete the welding and smoothing out then went back early afternoon to collect it. Fitted neatly on the bed for the trip home but needed tilting up at the front to clear the kitchen box.

Spent three hours this afternoon plotting out and drilling all the holes for the bolts that hold the skin to the frame. About 44 of them!!
Full speed ahead now.

_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[vw4wd]

Another couple of hours today finishing drilling all the holes and fitting M6 rivnuts.

Also decided to change the order of doing things and get the skin painted before final assembly rather than once it is all fitted. Found a paint sprayer right here in my village who can do it next week. Just right - gives me a few days to be sure all is well before taking it to him.
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[newfisher]

Looking good, im.excited to see it in action and finished

[newfisher]

Looking good, im.excited to see it in action and finished

[tjet]

[silverbulletuk]

Some of us over here are watching too, Gary
_________________
1986 syncro twin-slider rhd, 3.2S Oettinger wbx6
1990 SA Microbus - Supercharged wbx going in with UN-1 trans.
www.025motorsport.com

[Forthwithtx]

Are you allowed to use Alodine over there? It will definitely help with corrosion and paint adhesion on that al-you-minium.

[vw4wd]

Alodine is a new name to me. What are it's particular properties? Is it a paint primer? The outside will be painted next week in the same metallic white as the van (Honda N45).

Tried fitting the skin to the frame on the top of the van today. I reckon it looks good. More importantly, my wife is pleased with it, too!

It sits slightly off centre to the right - maybe by 6mm or so but then the frame is only on temporary mounting points (self tap screws!) at present. Without the gas struts it is pretty heavy to push as we can't get under the middle to lift it properly.
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[Forthwithtx]

[svenakela]

[Forthwithtx]

[IdahoDoug]

That nice strong top fairly begs for inclusion of a few sturdy tie downs before you paint it. Would be nice to have some lash cleats to bring home the odd Christmas tree, strap a future kayak up there, or to immobilise a mother in law.
_________________
1987 2WD Wolfsburg Vanagon Weekender "Mango", two fully locked 80 Series LandCruisers. 2017 Subaru Outback boxer. 1990 Audi 90 Quattro 20V with rear locking differential, 1990 burgundy parts Vanagon. 1984 Porsche 944, 1988 Toyota Supra 5 speed targa, 2002 BMW 325iX, 1982 Toyota Sunrader

[vw4wd]

OK, after two weeks flat out as Site Manager for Lighthouse, a children's holiday club run by our local churches, I am now back on the roof. (Well, there was a diversion on the way to repair broken wiring going into the door of my son's car - no power window or central locking!)

Today I have done a final trim of the slots cut into the insulation layer for a better fit around the frame.

Once this was done and he surface cleaned, I cut & fixed the headlining material - a stretchy material from Megavanmats here in the UK. It is glued on with high temperature spray adhesive. In the picture above you can just see little pieces of masking tape in place to prevent the glue getting into the rivnut threads. The tape was peeled off before the headling was applied.

I think I have mentioned before that the groove carved out of the insulation is to provide clearance for the folded H frame between the van roof and the poptop. Here you can see how well the stretchy material has formed to the carved groove.
Next thing was to open holes in the headlining over the rivnuts for the H frame brackets and the handles, then to fit the handles.

After this, I began glueing 5mm thick spacers into holes in the insulation around each of the skin fixing bolts. However, I discovered that several/many of the rivnuts were loose and spinning. I put this down to the extremely poor quality of the pliers I bought especially for this job. Minimal design, poor choice of materials and shoddy workmanship. Have now ordered a new tool of a different design. Hopeful it will work/last better!!
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[vw4wd]

[vw4wd]

A bit more progress today. My new rivnut tool arrived and is so much better than the previous 'plier' type. This one has two lever arms which you push together to draw the rivnut. Spent ages screwing the tool into each rivnut, pulling it a bit tighter, then unscrewing it again. Thumbs are aching now!

When I was trimming the edge of the headlining to match the frame I realised that there were several small scratches in the black paint on the frame work in areas which would be exposed to the weather in use. Rather than mask everything up and paint it again, I decide to apply waterproof tape around the edge instead. This has the advantage of also sealing and containing the edges of the headlining and the insulation foam, prevent the ingress of rain water or dampness.

I decided that a good way to fit the canvas would be with the roof panel upside down and the canvas inside out and stretched around it - like this:

Then we could fold the canvas edge over the frame to fix it. Leon, the guy who stitched the canvas for me, suggested using double-sided tape as a temporary fix to allow for getting the canvas properly aligned and this proved very successful. Once the first edge was properly positioned, the aluminium strip was screwed in place, using the holes along 'threaded' ages ago.

I have included some off-cut strips of canvas material under the fixing so that the canvas can be rolled up and tied to keep it tidy during the installation process.

After that, the legs went on & were tied to the handles to keep them under control during installation.

So far, the van itself has had nothing done to it, except for four small holes for temporary self tapping screws at the feet of the H frames. My next moves will be to strip out the headlining from the centre of the van, clean the top and remark the edges of the holes to be cut out and fit the lower mounting brackets for the gas struts. Then the roof frame can be lifted on, the skin sat in place and the gas strut pressures reduced until they work to my satisfaction. Once I can raise and lower the roof easily, it will be time to 'cut the hole!'
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[vw4wd]

Well, I stripped out the headlining and some other bits yesterday but made some real, visual, progress today.

With the help of my wife & son, we lifted the fitted out frame onto the roof, straightened the H frames and fitted the temporary self tapping screws at the bases. I then installed the lower mount brackets for the gas struts and bolt the struts to the top brackets on the main roof frame. One pair of the lower strut ends could be installed to the lower bracket but, as expected, the struts could not be compressed to fit the second pair. (The struts are not fully extended when the roof is raised.)

I then spent maybe an hour walking around the van, up and down steps, to bleed out the excess gas pressure from the tops of the struts until they could be compressed.

Once I could get some movement, the second pair of ends were installed and the pressure tested and reduced until the roof could be pulled down.

The three of us then went to get the aluminium skin and found it being inspected by our cat!

However, he allowed us to take it away and we lifted it on top of the frame and installed a few of the screws which attach it to the frame.

A bit more pressure reduction was needed until I could comfortably lift & lower the roof.

Really pleased that the final assembly is going so well - everything coming together nicely. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be able to get the hole cut out of the roof and at least begin to sort out the fixings for the bottom edge of the canvas.
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[vw4wd]

A significant step forward yesterday. I managed to do some little bits around the H frame lower mounts and the van head lining during the course of the day but, during the evening, I hooked up to the airline of a local business and cut out the roof aperture.

The air shears I had borrowed made easy work of the straight cuts although the 80mm radiused corners were harder work. Also cutting through very close to the edge of the 'slot' in the central roof stiffener was a challenge, too. The advantage of shears is that there is no swarf distributed by the process - it is like using two pairs of tin snips to cut a 5mm strip out of the roof.

The bulk of the opening came out in one piece but, for convenience, I decided to divert the cut back into the sunroof opening and remove the majority of the material before going back to the thin strip along the back edge of the sun roof opening.

Pressure is still on as it's now less than two weeks till we will be going away and camping in the van! How finished will it be by then?
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[vw4wd]

After the visible progress of recent days, today seems to have been long & tiring without a lot to show for it.
Most of my time was spent making and installing the plywood stiffeners around the new roof aperture. The two running across the van are made up of five pieces of 3mm ply, glued and clamped together against the roof skin to create the correct curvature.

As these went in, I also made the final fixings for the front H frame legs and the gas strut lower brackets. Each of these is now held by two M6 screws into T-nuts pulled up into the bottom of the ply strip. The cut edge of the roof was treated to a coat of red oxide primer to resist corrosion. All the fixing holes have been dosed with Waxoyl.

My son & I measured and marked where the corners of the tent should theoretically meet the roof and then unrolled the tent to check that it actually fitted these marks. All was well. Also, it confirmed that there was sufficient material to reach down to the van roof. Despite knowing that I had measured & checked everything before ordering the tent, there was still a nagging doubt in the back of my mind that could only be relieved by actually testing it in-situ.

We also offered up the head lining boards for the van in order to mark up the alterations required to fit them around the new hole. The cutting might get done tomorrow but little else is likely due to the weather forecast promising strong winds and torrential rain for most of the next two days!
_________________
Garyd

1990 Transporter syncro camper with 2 litre AGG 'GTi' engine

[yiucycle]

Amazing . Too bad this is a one off design, it would be great to offer this to any tin top. Also the torrential rain will be a good test for you to find all the the leaks. Great job on this mod.
_________________
1980 2.8LV6 Fiero ASI/Riviera Vanagon
"there is no point in being embarrassed of all the stupid shit i done and will continue to do"

Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!