Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 17:24:13 -0600
Reply-To: Buese Thomas <tombuese@COMCAST.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Buese Thomas <tombuese@COMCAST.NET>
Subject: Re: Pop top issue
In-Reply-To: <CACA2B92CE5A49D78EBE9BF0EAA5AA03@troyb5bff49d63>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
On May 28, 2011, at 6:20 PM, Troy wrote:
> Hi Tom.
>
> Sorry buddy, didn't mean to offend.
No offense taken! But I did laugh when I read your post.
> You have a great little invention there. When I attach my shelf it
> seemed to flatten out the center bar, which consequently made the
> distance between the struts greater. This in turn caused the left
> side of the struts to rub against the side walls.
The cross bar comes straight & evidently gets bent over the years from
pushing it up in the middle, especially if there are roof racks w/
kayaks, canoes, rocket boxes on it, etc.
It sounds like your whole poptop assembly might have been bent to one
side at a point( hit the garage w/ top up?), & now is tweaked making
the top hard to latch?
The shelf actually helps straighten out your cross bar to it's
original shape, but you have to have the bar sorta straight to put the
shelf on, & then it tweaks the shelf straighter once you tighten up
the U bolts. I have had a couple of volks not be able top install
their shelf until I told them to hand straighten the bar.
> I tried forcing it over, only to crack my skylight housing. Yeah, I
> know I should not have been doing that with the top down--dumb move
> on my part.
>
> Something is definitely askew with my poptop, so I seriously doubt
> it's related to your shelf, but it does exacerbate the situation.
Your whole poptop assembly needs to be "racked" to the right while the
top is up to straighten it out? Then the latch should line up better
to close?
> I tend to do most of my cooking outside, so rarely use the shelf
> anyway or forget it's there! I'm laughing to myself here as I just
> went camping last weekend and had stuff all over the place and
> probably could have made good use of it . Totally forgot it was there!
Yeah until I used mine awhile, I would also forget it was there, but
once it becomes intuitive, it is invaluable for serious camping, IMHO!
Pax,
Tom
>
> Perhaps somebody else can get some use out of it . I have 2
> stainless steel bars with it as well, which I never did get around
> to installing. This is one of these inventions that sounded great in
> theory, but in reality rarely got used in my case. Again, no
> reflection on the design. I actually think it's rather clever.
>
> Troy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Thomas Buese
> To: Troy
> Cc: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2011 3:59 PM
> Subject: Re: Pop top issue
>
>
> On May 28, 2011, at 2:06 PM, Troy wrote:
>> ...................
>>
>> Just moving the tongue part of the large upfront has helped a bit.
>> I have
>> also removed my Tom buese shelf, as I think this is causing the pop
>> top
>> struts to tweak a bit in the wrong direction.
>
> Huh?
>
> Coincidently, recently I replaced my OG poptop seals w/ new BD ones,
> & noticed how they made my poptop really hard to latch as the front
> seal was much stiffer than the original one.
> I think that is Ron's fault!!!!
>>
>> If anyone is interested in a shelf, give me a shout. I think I'm
>> going to
>> leave it off. I never much use it anyway.
>
> LOL!
>
> Keeping my new seals, so don't even ask for them, even if the poptop
> is only up 1% of the time.
>
> Mr. BZ-it's always my fault!
>
> ................................................
