Gunzil faulty skylight

[manxblade]

I have just received a skylight I purchased from gunzil vw I think it's faulty but they say that all the skylights come like this. It's not scratched or cracked but the fault looks to be the glue what do you all think faulty or not Jed or Simon are yours like this

[Ralf85]

It looks damaged. Send it back. I've had no problems returning stuff to them and getting a refund.

[jed the spread]

That'a a double glazed one right?

Jed

[manxblade]

That'a a double glazed one right?

Jed

Yes Jed thanx for looking what do you think

[jed the spread]

That's the glue that sticks the two parts together on the double glazed windows.

The Skylights CampervanCulture.com sells are not from Gunzel. When Westfalia vans or Vanagons were sent to the USA back in the day they were not complete and due to some tax dodge. A company called Delta 6 were asked to produce all the bits to finish them off in the USA so Skylights and a lot of the other parts had moulds made by Delta 6 that were the same as the German parts but some were done very differently like the water filling for example. Two or three years ago we bought every single double glazed original skylight in the USA and Canada that was left along with every single European fridge vent in black and white that existed (there were few hundred a the time) from The Skylight Guy before they packed up. Over a period of time we sold every double glazed one we had and didn't look quite so full of glue like in your picture. Gunzel bought all of the old Westfalia stock from Germany I believe and I am not sure if they are of the same quality as the USA ones we had. The ones we have been selling since were from the same original mould that was used for the North American market only single glazed. There is such a small area of a skylight that is actually double glazed that they just don't bother any more, especially when you factor in you are technically still sleeping under canvas!

We have squirrelled away lots of the Delta 6 stuff still, things like operator housing covers, lifter arms and that kind of thing but I recently bought a few of Gunzels Westfalia bits from a company here in the UK to check how similar they were to the original delta 6 stuff we had. On the parts I bought they had the letters PG on them that were in the moulding that obviously stands for Peter Gunzel so he has obviously sold out of original stuff ages ago too and is getting things reproduced. The quality is pretty good still so maybe those double glazed skylights are reproductions too hence the glue although the sticker suggests they might not be but you never can tell just by a sticker, you can get those made any place. I know Guzel has piled a ton of money into tooling and moulds for getting parts made over seas, even when you buy a Westy roof seals from VW Classic parts they have PG in the corner on the moulding so go figure that one!

Pretty much everything available for a Westfalia is a reproduction and usually made in China and unless you have the original factory mould like the Skylight guy has and he can still make single glazed skylights like some of the ones we have from the factory mould there can be a compromise somewhere. The bottom line is though you can only buy what is available because that is all there is. That said we did get first dibs on a 40ft container that Gowesty had full of Euro spec genuine Westfalia parts that they shipped over from Classic parts years ago when they stopped doing T3 stuff and didn't think that the T3 would ever become a "classic". On inspection there was a lot of interesting stuff in there but even more stuff that was just to random and all the Westfalia camper stuff was Mosaic so our friend took it instead. Good for us because we still have access to it all but no skylight stuff at all for pop tops unfortunately.

Anyway thats this evenings history lesson over with and if you want a replacement double glazed skylight that is your only option and you will have to live with the glue.

I hope this helps,

Jed

[manxblade]

Cheers Jed the bit about double glazing and still sleeping under canvas make's me feel a bit stupid wish I thought of that first anyway thanks for a great lesson