Club 80-90 Forums

Does someone recognise this hi-top?

Im just curious if its an aftermarket top or an original westfalia top?
When i do off-roading I can hear som squecks from the top.
Is there a way to reinforce it somehow or do hi-tops squeck even from factory installed ones.
Its been resprayed but on the pictures, pre-spray, it got the westfalia logo on the back.
The bus is an Multivan from westfalia.

After market high top I would say. Dunno about squeaking though. If mine does, I can't here it over the rattle of everything else.

I have the same roof on my black van, chopped it off a crashed van, I dont think its a westfalia original, but an aftermarket retrofit to your multivan.
I fitted mine to a tin top but i did a lot of reinforcing to the roofline first, and it doesn't squeek. However I also have a factory high top ambulance which does squeek offroad, so I would imagine that there is a bit of body twist when the wheels are at different levels, i have also heard it when i am jacking one corner of the van. The sticker that was on the back is probably added by a previous owner

Yep, after market. I'm quite sure the manufacturer of those are Polyroof.

A photo of the interior showing what is at roofline front to back would help comment on the squeaking and strengthening Q. The hightop Dehler vans had no crossmember at C pillar and a non-standard one at B pillar.

The polyroof looks very similar indeed!
This is a picture from before the respray, (not my picture but the previous owner.)



And this is a picture from the inside:

Not a Westfalia

Jed

MickeTJ wrote:And this is a picture from the inside:

Looks like no crossmember at roof line between C pillars. Is there anything across B pillar (behind the drivers head)? Without these one could expect some twisting of the shell when offroading which causes squeaks. Depending how offroad you want to go it might or might not be an issue.
I'm interested in this subject as have a Dehler hightop roof to place on mine, replacing poptop. Could potentially relieve van of B and C crossmembers, creating walk-through front to rear without ducking. There's a chap on here called fabzzz with a hightop and he's replacing the C crossmember with an (arched?) one to create more headroom.
Lots of possibilites here with varying levels of shell twisting involved.

The factory westys and hightop vans had extra strengthening all the way around the top of the steel structure, and had cross braces that ran up and around the inside of the roofs instead of straight across between the pillars, to counteract the lost strength from not having the pressed steel roof panel in place

Looks like my old vans EMC top.