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Date:         Tue, 2 Mar 2004 08:02:00 -0500
Reply-To:     Greg Potts <Greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Greg Potts <Greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Subject:      Re: Factory assembly information?
Comments: To: vanagon <vanagon@ASTOUND.NET>
In-Reply-To:  <001301c3ffd9$7a6f0c70$d9032a45@ttower17def>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Hi Doug,

I built my baywindow westfakia along the same lines as what you're planning. From what I've seen chopping up two buses, I may be able to lend some insight, though it won't be Vanagon specific. OTOH, I'm sure VW used similar principals putting the vanagon together, esp. when you consider how similar the sunroof and westy roofs of bays and vanagons are.

There are pics of my conversion online here: http://www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia/Gallery

and here: http://www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia/creation/index.html

The way I did mine was to peel the skin away from the donor roof, and overlap it with the original bus roof. The edges were spot-welded and the seams smoothed with filler. It sounds ugly but it wasn't so bad... and besides, the roof is closed 99% of the time so most people never notice the seam anyway. It did take quite a while to liberate the skin from the box-section upper framing, but the end result was much easier to work with. It took me about 100 hours labour to do this conversion, but an autobody professional could probably do it in less than half that amount of time.

Happy trails,

Greg Potts Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1973/74/79 Westfakia Conversion **Bob the Tomato** 1977 Sunroof Automatic http://www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia http://www.geocities.com/busesofthecorn

On 1-Mar-04, at 5:06 PM, vanagon wrote:

> The primarily reason for my asking is I am in the midst of installing > a pop top roof on my 87 (non pop top) GL Syncro. I would like to > better understand what order certain metal pieces were joined > together, this will greatly help. I have heard stories of folks who > went to Germany to see their Vanagon's being built, and were able to > witness the entire process! Wow. >


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