Club 80-90 Forums

We are taking our 1986 Syncro westfalia in to have a new brickworks  pop top fitted by a specialist but he already suggested that some of the screws for the top skirt and some at the bottom edge are so corroded he would prefer to drill fresh holes for new screws
so is there a ring or halo of embedded metal for hime to do this?

When we were there the screws holding the rail to the GRP top were corroded so on a test one it snapped.
The guy recons embedded in the GRP is either a metal halo all round that he can drill into or the original screws
go into embedded metal bits so he could re drill close by and replace with better screws.
Anybody know how these original GRP pop tops were made and what metal was embedded and how to take the locating screws to hold the top rail in position to clamp the top edge of the pop top so.
Also the screws are very thin so getting them out could be a real problem or they just snap and drilling them v difficult as they are only about 1 mm accross
Anybody have a solution or done something similar and re drilled for new screws could you let me know

Kevin

 

Just use a builders metal detector to find the position of the metal.

There’s not really much wriggle room, the screw holes have small reinforced areas for the each screw hole

davidoft1 wrote: ↑29 Jun 2023, 19:28 There’s not really much wriggle room, the screw holes have small reinforced areas for the each screw hole

Do you know how wide the reinforced areas are for each screw hole in the Westfalia top for the pop up roof
and photos or cutaway diags would be good. I take it that you have done this before for your own VW so know this is correct rather than what is called a halo that is embedded all the way round in the fibreglass as in T6 VW?
regards
Kevin

syncro4us wrote: ↑04 Jul 2023, 13:51

davidoft1 wrote: ↑29 Jun 2023, 19:28 There’s not really much wriggle room, the screw holes have small reinforced areas for the each screw hole

Do you know how wide the reinforced areas are for each screw hole in the Westfalia top for the pop up roof
and photos or cutaway diags would be good. I take it that you have done this before for your own VW so know this is correct rather than what is called a halo that is embedded all the way round in the fibreglass as in T6 VW?
regards
Kevin

I changed my canvas a few years back , roughy 1 inch squares