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Anon
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Roof falling off...
This is quite a funny one actually.. The plastic roof on my high-top CF has managed to "unglue" itself from the rest of the van, most of the way. It is still on there, but I'm not very confident to drive around like that. If I really need to, I think I'll just get a ratchet strap around the entire van to hold it in place. Water leakage inside is just incredible.
So if the sunny weather ever comes again, I'm thinking of removing the high top and replacing it with a low steel roof. How hard is it to fabricate one from sheet metal?
When the roof is ready, is it welded all the way around with a continuous seam, or is it just tacked on here and there and the rest sealed with filler/glue/polyester/whatever?
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 Sat 04 Feb 2012 @ 10:17
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Anon
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Roof panel is spot welded.
According to the GM manual 'Super Seam Sealer' is used for sealing spot welded and overlap joints; dunno what it is other than it may be styrene based.
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Sat 04 Feb 2012 @ 14:42
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Anon
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I'm attacking my seams with car seam sealer this spring to ensure all my leaks are sealed for the season. It is supposed to be good stuff apparently.
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Sat 04 Feb 2012 @ 17:30
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Anon
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i used a product called ct1 off greedbay only £7.99 tube , its a sealer and a bonding agent and you can even use it in the wet, am dry as a bone nowadays .
i'd give that a go
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Sat 04 Feb 2012 @ 20:26
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Anon
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Thanks! I've got some really good seam sealer that I used for the window blanking, so I'll probably use that. Only problem is the smell.. Styrene, for sure! I'll probably fabricate a panel from scratch when the time comes, unless something pops up locally (doubtful).
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Wed 08 Feb 2012 @ 01:26
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Anon
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Hi Jim the best sealer you can use for the roof job is sikaflex it sets like rubber and is flexable.
Dave
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Wed 08 Feb 2012 @ 07:21
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Anon
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Its certainly a big bit of sheetwork if you are making it in one piece; depending on how newt you want it depends on the approach you take:
1. to cut a sheet larger than the area of the roof, cut curved Vs in the corners and hammer the resultant 'flaps' to shape- possibly round a sturdy steel tube before welding and grinding corners
2. To hammer the whole roof shape from one sheet using traditional panel beating skills.
Both of the above are made more complex because of the physical size and weight of the sheet and workspace implications, then needing to put a satisfactory lip around the edge to provide a join to the wall panels. Id be hesitant to attempt it!
I also think that if a substantial part of the roof panel is flat, it will be very noisy, booming over every bump in the road.
I think your best bet would be to find a CF thats being scrapped and salvage the roof from that, even if you then need to remove dings afterwards. Much much less work!
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Wed 08 Feb 2012 @ 21:03
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Anon
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You could go crazy n make yourself a convertible CF.
Anyone ever done it?
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Wed 08 Feb 2012 @ 21:06
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Anon
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Mikeyboy wrote:
I think your best bet would be to find a CF thats being scrapped and salvage the roof from that, even if you then need to remove dings afterwards. Much much less work!
It would be a toil popping all the spot welds to remove a roof panel but you'd end up with a pressed panel & thus more rigid than a hand shaped one.
I'd guess that the original cant rail under the GRP roof would have remnants of the original steel roof to clean off as well.
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Wed 08 Feb 2012 @ 22:07
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Anon
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From what I've seen it's pretty much like a pop-top cut.. It still has the edges intact, only the top part is missing... But it's rusty as hell, so the edges are probably unusable.
I'm thinking of fabricating it from smaller pieces and including some pressed bits for rigidity. I'm not too sure how I'm going to do it yet, but as workshop space is very limited, I'll wait for the summer and work on it outside in the yard. I'm also considering cutting out a roof from an unrelated van, and welding that on if the size is anything compatible.
But still quite a bit of research to do..
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Fri 10 Feb 2012 @ 12:00
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