Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

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Smosh
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by Smosh »

So pleased I a pop top right now!! Sincerely, Good luck!
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davegsm82
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by davegsm82 »

CovKid wrote:Dave, you could well have started the most watched thread ever. Hope you know just how big that job is going to be. :shock:

Footnote: My elderly Mum just said "I hope hes not married" lol

Aww, shucks. I don't think it will be that big, people will run off once they see the quality of my welding*

I am actually, she does her thing, I do mine. She can't complain as I keep the motors rolling so all of this is classed as practice ;)

*A friend has lent me a bottle of ArgoShield, mercifully, so welding *MAY* improve since so far I've been Gas-less migging stuff together.

Smosh wrote:So pleased I a pop top right now!! Sincerely, Good luck!

Cheers, I've heard of similar horror stories with some pop-tops which have a fixed external base fixed to the tin-top much like the hi top.

And so onto to todays antics.

Since I was away visiting friends, my mum and brother were in attendance for the roof arriving, which it did at 8.50AM.

So here it is, kind of looks like I sunk a tin-top into my garden and filled it with grass :rollin

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The gutters look like this, perfectly rust free and just a little dirty. In this picture it's hard to see the spot welds, however once you give it a wipe down with a scotchbrite type sponge, it immediately becomes apparent exactly where the spots are. No removal of paint was necessary at all which made me most happy

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You can see the spots along the top of the windscreen, underneath the glue. The glue came out absolutely no problem with the wire wheel but once the paint was removed it was actually HARDER to see the spots, so I removed only the glue leaving the paint intact.

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The roof is HEAVY. It takes 2 people to lift, however you can flip it over yourself to gain access to the more tricky areas such as the 4 extreme corners where the roof skin has been brazed to the body. While we're looking at the rear of this, unfortunately the roof skin swoops down and curves back up to form one half of the U-channel which the tailgate rubber seal fits into. This is a BAD IDEA. Due to the huge gap at the top of the tailgate, water can almost directly hit this seal and since there are 3 joins in this area water does get in. This Tin-top does have damage to the inner body structure, it's obvious that the water has been seeping under the back of the seal and wicking through the gap :(

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Because of the damage to the previously discussed seal area, I have opted to not try and unpick this area, instead sliced along the exterior D-pillar skin sideways, then down and along below the level of the rear hinges. I will tidy the welds up another night. I will either seam this area to the existing material or leave a half inch of overlap and drill and spot this down to the existing.

The brazed area is an absolute pig to deal with when trying to preserve the skin, this won't be as much of an issue when removing the rotten skin on my bus as I don't care about keeping it tidy, instead I will cut the steel skin as close to the braze as possible and then grind flat the remaining material, ready to receive the new roof.

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After much more wrestling with the roof, mainly the brazed areas, it finally came free and went over to be stored against the fence. Also in the shot we can see the two roof braces which go between the B and C pillars, I've opted to save these (again drilled out spots) in case one day I decide to go tin-top, since one of mine is missing. Not shown are the 4 reinforcing braces which have rotted through on my bus, these will be replaced once everything all comes off.

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Here's what the rest of the roof looks like, flat-packed for easy storage :)

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So then, I have more work to do without completely removing the high-top, i.e. remove the rotten support brackets, remove the roll-bar/brace, clean up the roof skin and deal with the rot up the front end of the roof. To deal with the rot up front, I'll remove the storage box above the cab and move my pusher rams to the front of the roof such that it cantilevers in the opposite direction. The weight of the solar panel should keep the back end from lifting.

That's all for tonight folks apart from one question, when I come to seal it down, precisely what TYPE of sikaflex (or other sealant?) should I use?

Dave.
'87 Devon TDi 'Lily'
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davegsm82
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by davegsm82 »

Day 3....

Early start today, 9.30AM, just finished at 10.30PM.

Roof off today, took 3 people, 1 inside the van (me) pushing backwards and lifting over the roll bar. 2 outside the van to receive the roof and walk backwards. I then jumped out and took the front end then walked it onto the grass.

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Roll bar had to be cut out. then the support rails (upper bunk) removed, lots of ropey tack welds attached only to the remnants of the roof skin, wouldn't have supported much in the case of an accident.

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continued and finished cleaning up the rear corners, then the fronts.

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Once that was done, I reached a turning point... the rebuild stage begun...

Front brace going in (B-pillar).

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Rear brace going in (C-Pillar). This one was cut down to an inch longer than where it crosses the inner rail, at which point I have bent it downwards and welded it in to give extra rigidity. I will be doing something similar with the roof skin.

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Called in help again to get the roof skin in place, decided immediately that I can't be doing with a tin-top. I'm 6' 0" and I don't like having to be hunched over all the time.

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Wrapped up for the night.

Tried welding with the Gas today as opposed to gasless, noted immediately that it's a cleaner, hotter weld. I'm glad I have the loan of the gas for the spots in the gutter as I want to make sure they are absolutely 100% sealed with no holes or any metal missing.

When welding the braces in place I had feared that the poor condition of the metal would mean it would punch through. however it's still reasonably thick and didn't breach at any point, however the hotter weld of the MIG+gas was readily setting fire to the paint on the underside which the Gasless didn't seem to do.

Plenty to be getting on with tomorrow.

Dave.
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by bluebus1987 »

Excelent work there.Outdoors and in a timescale that puts most of us to shame.
It just shows what can be acheived if you set your mind to it. When I see vans being scrapped, described as beyond repair for a few rusty seams, it makes me wonder why they bought the things in the first place.

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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by tforturton »

It never ceases to amaze me the jobs that van owners undertake - often, as in this case, on their own drive (or back garden). Hats off to you for taking on a difficult job - I suspect a lot of people would have simply sent the van to the breakers....
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by ZsZ »

Good work there.
When it is ready dont forget to use a lot of hollow section wax and/or a fluidfilm like penetrating fluid to seal those black converted rust spots you leave after the wire wheeling. Otherways the rust will come back.
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by davegsm82 »

bluebus1987 wrote:Excelent work there.Outdoors and in a timescale that puts most of us to shame.
It just shows what can be acheived if you set your mind to it. When I see vans being scrapped, described as beyond repair for a few rusty seams, it makes me wonder why they bought the things in the first place.

Ohhh, you'll make me blush!

tforturton wrote:It never ceases to amaze me the jobs that van owners undertake - often, as in this case, on their own drive (or back garden). Hats off to you for taking on a difficult job - I suspect a lot of people would have simply sent the van to the breakers....

I couldn't send my bus to the scrapper just for something stupid like this. It's not even that expensive of a job, the roof cost me £265 and I've probably spent maybe another £100-200 in consumables such as paint/disks/belts etc. Everything else is just time, fortunately I get plenty of that inbetween working long days at the hospital.

ZsZ wrote:Good work there.
When it is ready dont forget to use a lot of hollow section wax and/or a fluidfilm like penetrating fluid to seal those black converted rust spots you leave after the wire wheeling. Otherways the rust will come back.

Well...

Day 4....

VACTAN ALL THE THINGS

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RED OXIDE ALL THE THINGS

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The begins the fun stuff.

These need to be filled with metal.

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This cleans the paint to make life easier.

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Thusly...

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Rinse and repeat about a BILLION times.

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Til they all look like this;

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Once that was done, I moved to the rear.

Everything was going well until I got to this part and the welder started to spit and sputter rather than run nicely, made for some pretty horrible looking welds. A large G-clamp was used to push the new skin towards the existing one, a small spot then move on with the clamp until the two were close enough to stick together nicely.

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Does this 'Seam' welded to you? :rollin

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No time to waste, on to these areas, after I'd found the reason for the poor weld which was the regulator had been turned way down too low when I moved the bottle. Wasn't hard to make it look presentable, although a couple of areas perforated easily and I had to build it up.

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While working around the tailgate I found some rot in the U-channel for the seal, so I spent about an hour cutting, vactaning and building up these areas before moving to finish the gutters. Just one of those little jobs that was easy to do with the door off and the welder in hand.

I ran out of powerfile (handheld linisher?) belts, with about 20 spots in the gutter to go at 9pm and was too tired to continue, plus hunger was taking it's toll so I knocked it on the head for the night. I lashed loads of red oxide onto the welds before wrapping up so hopefully it will all remain watertight until next week when I get more time on it.

Remaining tasks;

1) Cut large hole in nice shiny (waterproof) roof.
2) Re-build Roll bar.
3) Repair damage to fibreglass roof.
4) Put fibreglass roof back onto metal roof.
5) Relax.
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by evilnoodle »

Looks like an excellent job and in astonishingly quick time. Well done indeed :D

It has taken us a week to glue a few battens into the hi-top for the start of our interior re-build :rofl
Jane :-)

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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by tforturton »

evilnoodle wrote:Looks like an excellent job and in astonishingly quick time. Well done indeed :D

Very true.... you work incredibly fast.
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by ZsZ »

:ok
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by restoman »

Well done, you are doing a great job there!
Bet your neighbours love you

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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by bluebus1987 »

Please, please don't mention neighbours. Friday, elderly nutso neighbour parked his car across the narrow lane where we live to get someone to call the police so he could complain to them about my van. When it didn't work out he started ranting and raving. When I ignored that, he started grabbing handfulls of my tools ( including my 8 year old sons pride and joy of a birthday present cordless drill ) and lobs them down the road.
Today I knocked on his door and asked in the meakest mildest terms if I could do a little more work and therefore move the object of his hatred, and he grumpily agrees.
An hour later he's out on the road again but all smiles and an hour long conversation about his life history and the world at large. Its not about noise or anything like that ,I'm very carefull about that sort of stuff.
The trouble is I wont know till tomorrow what sort of mood he's in, could go either way.
And I know perfectly well from experience that if it's not the van it will be something else.
Luckily all the other neighbours are fine.

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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by davegsm82 »

Thank you for the comments, I'm sort of overwhelmed with everyones responses. I don't really think I'm doing anything particularly quickly or at a high standard. The speed of work is borne of necessity, without a garage of any form of substantial weatherproofing, any work has to be completed quickly. However the haste doesn't negate the need for quality, since I don't ever want to have to go through this again, so I want to make sure it's done as right as I can make it.

My neighbour(s*) don't really mind that much. The one to the left of me is as deaf as a post and has 2x yappy Devil-dogs which make my life a misery.

*the one to the right has just moved out so that's not really an issue.

I've not done any more real work since Day 4, other than covering half of the town with a light dusting of sanded fibreglass and body-filler. It's all got to be removed from the High-top before I try to re-mount it. It gets EVERYWHERE.

Dave.
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by weegaz22 »

bluebus1987 wrote:Please, please don't mention neighbours. Friday, elderly nutso neighbour parked his car across the narrow lane where we live to get someone to call the police so he could complain to them about my van. When it didn't work out he started ranting and raving. When I ignored that, he started grabbing handfulls of my tools ( including my 8 year old sons pride and joy of a birthday present cordless drill ) and lobs them down the road.
Today I knocked on his door and asked in the meakest mildest terms if I could do a little more work and therefore move the object of his hatred, and he grumpily agrees.
An hour later he's out on the road again but all smiles and an hour long conversation about his life history and the world at large. Its not about noise or anything like that ,I'm very carefull about that sort of stuff.
The trouble is I wont know till tomorrow what sort of mood he's in, could go either way.
And I know perfectly well from experience that if it's not the van it will be something else.
Luckily all the other neighbours are fine.

wow, I'd have knocked him out rather than knock on his door, but thats probably the Glasgow side of me talking :mrgreen:

Anyway, the vans coming on well dave, think i would have crapped my pants after taking that roof off, mines is coming along slowly as well, when i bought it i wanted to do Volksfling Mk2 in it, but as you will undoubtedly know the more you get into the more things you find to fix, I still hope to make it to volksfling but i don't think the van will be looking "cosmetically at its best" like i thought it would have been
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Re: Getting to grips with a rotten roof (Pic heavy)

Post by bluebus1987 »

"wow, I'd have knocked him out rather than knock on his door, but thats probably the Glasgow side of me talking :mrgreen:"

He's in his 80s and the sole carer for his wife who is pretty much completely reliant on him after a serious stroke, plus I've got three young kids who need me not in prison. Otherwise....
Having asked nicely if we were ok this morning, he carefully parked in the middle of the road with his front tyre on my extension lead and giggled when I politely pointed it out. Why????????
I should start a blog realy, this is a bit of a thread hijack, Apologies. :D

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