Date:         Wed, 3 Mar 2004 10:39:36 -0500
Reply-To:     Greg Potts <Greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Greg Potts <Greg@POTTSFAMILY.CA>
Subject:      Re: Cutting hole in Vanagon roof
Comments: To: Westyman <syncrowestytd@MINDSPRING.COM>
In-Reply-To:  <JBEOJOBKGBDBEAIBOCBEAEOPDBAA.syncrowestytd@mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Hi Karl,

I did it to a baywindow, it wasn't all that hard. Only took about 100
hours or so. Jamie Auch installed a high-top on his 71 a few weeks ago,
you might want to give him a call. He got that done in one weekend, and
did the interior trim the following weekend.

My treatment was to weld in the roof skin from a bay westy, which gave
me all the trim and bracing that was required. The headliner also came
from the donor westy. The end result is a bus that would take a sharp
eye to detect the mods. There are lots of pics online at the westfakia
link in my signature.

<Flame suit initializing>

Personally, I think the main function of the upper sheetmetal is just
to keep the rain out.  If the sunroof vanagon can be built without that
sheet metal in place, why not some other model?   IMO anything that
hits the vanagon hard enough to buckle that upper box-section has
already killed the occupants anyway. YMMV.

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 3-Mar-04, at 1:08 PM, Westyman wrote:

> I have a not-so-nice Vanagon that I'd like to experiment with, by
> cutting a
> hole in the roof for the addition of a camper top. I'm sure others
> here may
> have done this, and would be interested in knowing how the metal was
> finished off around the hole, braced or strengthened, and blended to
> the
> headliner, pitfalls to avoid, etc. All comments appreciated.
>
> Karl
>
>