New Pop Top for Eurovan?

[Noel_Russ]

Hi - I am trying to find someplace in the western US who can/will replace the pop top on a 1997 EVC
My current top is cracking along the lateral sides and the cracks are continuing to travel along the width of the roof
Would love to convert to a fiberglass pop top but cant seem to find anyone who makes a roof for EVC wheelbase
Also would be willing to convert to a High Top if there's one that fits

any referrals for possibly manufacturers/shops would be SO appreciated!

[Itsamoto]

User "Filmshoot" is your man -- he's got a westalia top for a long wheel base and he's in California.

[DenverB]

Westfalia made a LWB top for a VW t4 lwb? I've never seen one (that's not to say it doesn't exist, of course). if that's true and dude has one, it's a unicorn in North America and I bet would command a pretty penny...

Colorado Campervans has done an EVC top -- it wasn't cheap, apparently: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=618348

I know Cole says he's working on a solution as well...

we've had to patch a few EVC tops... found the best method is some aluminum strips and panel glue... I'll get a photo up when I get a chance.. it's not pretty, but it holds.

otherwise, a replacement is around 4k from what i understand..
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'77 Transporter/camper (Bussy - Reef Blue/Pastel White)
'67 bug (Santos - VW Blue)
'84 Vanagon Westfalia (Pink Flamingo - Pastel White/Pink)
'88 Vanagon GL Westfalia (Frankie Says - Wolfram Gray)
'02 Eurovan Weekender (Green Apple)
'95-'03 Eurovan full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'84 -'91 Vanagon full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'72 Porsche 914 (Greta - RIP)

www.RockyMountainCampervans.com

[CdnVWJunkie]

[Itsamoto]

Sorry my bad -- its a "Westfalia-style" top.

From what I've seen, it looks like the sleek top found on Eurovan Westfalia.

[CdnVWJunkie]

[Gruppe B]

http://www.austops.co.uk/vw-t4-roofs

More photos of Poptop install
http://www.moorescampers.co.uk/pop-tops/

[wildenbeast]

This top looks really nice. Is it me, or does it raise the top more than the stock tops? My one gripe coming from a Vanagon to Eurovans was that the top didn't pop up quite as tall. This top maker seems to have thought the same thing.
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- Bill, '93 Eurovan Syncro Weekender (2.5 manual ACU)

[DenverB]

Just to follow up, here is a photo of our repair on our cracked top on one of our EVC campers. Basically just strips of aluminum at about a quarter inch gauge, with panel glue to stick them to the top.

It is not pretty, I'll admit that, but everyone I talk to said welding plastic this old it's pointless and it's never going to hold up. Plastic welds also look pretty ugly, at least this has some sort of industrial flow to it.

For what it's worth, this crack was caused by extremely cold temperatures and someone taking skis off of the roof and bumping the edge with their ski edge.

Ski racks came off all vans after I took this pic.
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'77 Transporter/camper (Bussy - Reef Blue/Pastel White)
'67 bug (Santos - VW Blue)
'84 Vanagon Westfalia (Pink Flamingo - Pastel White/Pink)
'88 Vanagon GL Westfalia (Frankie Says - Wolfram Gray)
'02 Eurovan Weekender (Green Apple)
'95-'03 Eurovan full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'84 -'91 Vanagon full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'72 Porsche 914 (Greta - RIP)

www.RockyMountainCampervans.com

[Itsamoto]

What are the differences in the construction of the "weekender" top vs the "Camper" top? One is fiberglass and the other is just molded plastic - is that right?

I've seen camper tops go up and down -- but never tried it myself. They look to go up quickly (being lighter?).

Is it reasonable to pull the top off a camper and layup some fiberglass on the inside of it to strengthen it all around?

[DenverB]

I don't know much about the weekender top, other than it's fiberglass...

the EVC top is a piece of shit design all around, frankly. It's two pieces of ABS-like plastic molded together with a wooden frame in between. they are hollow in points and over time the top sheet (white) gets brittle and cracks. They aren't incredibly heavy and I think the weekender top is heavier based on my own persona expirience...

could you glass the underside of an EVC top? probably, but it wouldn't increase the strength of the top sheet of plastic at all and would add a lot more weight. You'd want to pull a full top, pull apart the sandwitched materials adn then go at it reinforcing the thing ... at that point youv'e spent who knows how much time, money and effort into something that probably won't last another 20 years tho.

i really think that i'll be looking at importing lwb t4 tops in the future..
_________________
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'77 Transporter/camper (Bussy - Reef Blue/Pastel White)
'67 bug (Santos - VW Blue)
'84 Vanagon Westfalia (Pink Flamingo - Pastel White/Pink)
'88 Vanagon GL Westfalia (Frankie Says - Wolfram Gray)
'02 Eurovan Weekender (Green Apple)
'95-'03 Eurovan full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'84 -'91 Vanagon full campers and weekenders (rental fleet)
'72 Porsche 914 (Greta - RIP)

www.RockyMountainCampervans.com

[Xtremjeepn]

The Weestfalia (weekender top) is fiberglass with multiple layers of wood inside.

The Winnebago (full camper) top is plastic.


I personally would start with gluing and screwing town Yakima rack rails. This would strengthen the top and give the rack mounts most people want.

After that some strategic plating could be used over the known weak spots.

I just haven't had one to play with yet.
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http://www.cavevan.com

[Itsamoto]

[dixoncj]

[jjvincent]

This is a common problem with those pop top camper trailers. They use that same crappy ABS plastic that's all the rage in the US RV industry.

A neighbor of mine took his top off (it was a Coleman pop top trailer). It was two layers with wood in between. So, he filled the gaps with expandable foam (it took plenty and needed plenty of access holes on the bottom to fill it properly). He sanded the whole outside down. Then he found something used for boat hull repairs (some sort of final outside coating to go over the fiberglass). Put like three coats on it. Then sanded that down and painted it white.

In the end, it was heavier but it looked really good. It sat outside for years and the top ended up looking better than the rest of it.

[Abscate]

I top load a 100 lb dinghy on my MV to take it to the Cape.

I use pool noodles to rest the load, and tie down with Nylon boat cleats on the fiberglass top which are nut bolted on and backed with 1 inch fender washers.

6 years now and about 30 8 hour round trips like this.
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.ssS!

[IdeaNerd]

[Xtremjeepn]

I haven't seen one cut totally apart.

But....I can tell you from drilling through them that the 1993-2003 tops have two layers of wood sandwiched in the fiberglass and separated by an air gap.

I've drilled holes the whole length of these tops to install Yakima rack rails. Total thickness is a bit under an inch. I've aways had to buy longer bolts (1.25" I think) to get through the tops.

They did change the tops though. The 1993 tops are totally smooth on the top. All the nuts are built in. The later tops have "filler plugs" on the outside where all the nut holes go.
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http://www.cavevan.com

[IdeaNerd]

Interesting! That's thicker than I would have guessed. I wonder if the two layers of wood that are sandwiched w/air between them have some sort of fairly tight vertical structure inside, like honeycomb / Nida-Core or the like. I would guess it does (would make it much more rigid torsionally).

Do you happen to recall about how thick the wood pieces were, and/or how big the air gap was?

Thanks for the info!

[IdeaNerd]

Related to this, and probably a oft-repeated question (sorry!.. I haven't been able to find the answer here yet): does anyone make a DIY Weekender-like conversion pop-top that A) is available in the U.S. (even if shipped from abroad) and B) doesn't require onsite installation by the manufacturer.

i.e. something that an ace like Xtremjeepn could use to convert an tin-top into a pop-top, without having to have a Weekender "donor vehicle":
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=625089