Build thread: Aussie Westfalia Conversion

[OzzieJo]

Hi All, just wondering if anyone can provide some advice on how to rectify an annoying issue that I am having with my pop top, symptoms as follows:

The top will close and latch fine, but on 95% of occasions only the right rear corner is fully down, while the left rear is ever so slightly raised (just enough that the seal on the left corner is about 3-5mm off the roof). On the small amount of occasions that I get the left rear to fully close, the right rear will remain slightly ajar. When closing the top from inside you can see a slight difference in angle between the front right and left, ie the front right will close first. My standard technique for closing the top is to drop It down and then go outside and tuck in any parts of the tent that are hanging out on either side, then come in and pull the top down firmly to latch it. Sometimes while performing this final tuck I have tried to pull the rear right corner down and in so doing I can hear that the hinge is slightly “binding”

Given the above do you think that I need to adjust either rear hinge forward or back to get it in better alignment, or is there something more serious at play here. Oh the top has no lift assist struts installed.

Cheers

[OzzieJo]

Could someone please send me some images of where and how their power steering reservoir is mounted. My van did not originally have power steering and I am working on rectifying that now.

Also would appreciate any images and dimensions of the spice rack and the associated trim on the sliding door side. I’m trying to make these up from scratch and haven’t got much to go on at this stage. Particularly interested in sliding door side how wide the bottom piece is and how far does it go to rear of van… images, dimensions would be appreciated

Cheers

[OzzieJo]

Location and mounting arrangement for PS reservoir has been sorted

[OzzieJo]

I’m still chasing some images of the spice rack and the moulding above the sliding door if anyone can oblige I would be truly grateful.

I made a sheet metal template for the spice rack last night, but thought that it finished at the rear cupboard. I saw some images today to make my think that the curtain track portion extends behind the wardrobe cabinet. I would be really keen to get some images of how (or if) the curtain track extends behind this cabinet, and then just some general images showing general layout of the spice rack. Something for scale would be good so I can judge what widths/heights etc.

I am after similar images that show detail of the moulding that goes around the sliding door, and how far back it goes toward the rear of the van, how is is fixed to the van, how far away from the edge is the curtain rail, etc etc . PM me for email address if you would rather not clog up the topic with a heap of phots.

Thanks in advance

[Howesight]

Hi Joe:

I am replying only to the question about your pop top. I had my pop top on an off many times when building my extended pop-top. I had that binding occur a couple times. As far as I was able to determine, the cause of the binding was that the bolts fastening the fibrelass top to the scissor hinge were not sufficiently tightened. This allowed one hinge to move while the other did not move in sync. It seems that proper operation of the scissor hinge requires left and right hinges to open/close at exactly the same time and distance, failing which, binding occurs. On both occasions, tightening those bolts cured the problem. Hope this helps!
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'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

This lot arrived from the other side of the planet during the week … thanks Chris

[jordauto]

Hello Joe. Your pics helped me with my tin top to pop top conversion. So I help these will help you. These are all from my 88 factory Westy. It’s LHD so will be mirror reverse to yours. The spice rack and curtain track ends at the wardrobe closet and then there is a fixed aluminum curtain rail similar to the earlier ones. The spice rack and the sliding door trim both hook up on top, into the pop top opening. The bumper on the lift arms actually rests on them when down.

Let me know if you need close up detail of anything.

[OzzieJo]

Thanks Jord, greatly appreciated, I will have a closer look when finished with this job.

Out with the old … that took about 5 mins

[OzzieJo]

Getting the new bar on was pretty straight forward, except I had to drill some new holes for the forward mounting bolts. I found that there was some material that interfered with the washer and nut as shown below.

So I had to break out this little fella again to make some more room

The HD drop links went it pretty well except I found that the nuts on the upper ball joint were pretty tight. I managed to get the right hand side on, but I just couldn’t get the left one on so eventually I had to remove it and place it in a vice and then run the nut up and down a few times with an impact driver just to get it free enough that it could be tightened without breaking something.

All done, cant wait to see what difference this makes.

[Multiman mv]

I think you will love that beefier sway bar. It made a big difference in how my van handled and cornered.

Looking good. You must be getting real close!
_________________
1991 multivan, FAS 1.9 tdi, Peloquin limited slip
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

[jordauto]

Hey Joe, I can do that. Do you want measurements in metric or imperial? And a couple of quick answers, the trim on the sliding door side butts up against the headbanger cabinet and doesn’t go behind it. There is a short fixed aluminum curtain rod just like the other side behind the wardrobe. I’ll take some more pics once it cools down this evening and see if there is enough internet to upload them. We use an LTE hub for internet and there has been no bandwidth for over a week now and even trying to use our phones it barely loads anything. Let me know your preferred measurement units and I’ll post some more pics.

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

Today I started on trying to re-create the Westy spice rack, and trim that covers up the upper part of the sliding door.

For the sliding door trim I thought that it would be easier to start with the base, and once that is ready I will try to figure out how I can make the metal covering. I used some corflute to try and get the basic shape, when this is finished I will move onto some thicker material.

Starting from a point about 1/4 way from the front of the sliding door I came up with this piece.

The shaded notch area is where the piece transitions from the sliding door to the rear cabin. I have made it about 40mm wide, not sure if this ties in with the true Westy piece (Jordauto could you confirm for me).

Forward of this piece is where the upper sliding door track starts to make its funky curve into the cabin. I popped up the top and then used a piece of cardboard to trace the curves.

Once cut out I traced it onto some more corflute and came up with the following which I hope reassembles something like the one on the Westy.

Once again the narrowest portion is about 40mm and I hope that this roughly ties in with the Westy design. The flat edge at the bottom is where it will finish behind the passengers head (I still have o figure out the pattern for the forward end.

Next I tried to make a profile of the spice rack … this is what I came up with.

The hook on the upper left (sorry the image should be rotated 90 deg to the right) is where the piece sits on the upper bunk support. The base is about 15cm wide, and once again I would appreciate if someone could confirm this for me.

Here is another image at a different angle.

[jordauto]

That looks like a good start. Here’s some more detail for you. The first pics are from the door side.

And the spice rack.

We’ve been having a crazy summer. A few days ago we had a massive heat wave. We had temps of 44c here and a couple of hours drive from here was just shy of 50c the hottest ever recorded in Canada. A couple of days later that small town burned to the ground from a wildfire. We are pretty much choking from the smoke from the fires all around us but so far none are close enough to be a threat to us. At least we are back to normal summer temps of 35c.

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]

[OzzieJo]