Fitting a poptop

[therealchrisgray]

Screaming in frustration here, could do with some advice!

I bought a new poptop a while back, apparently a copy of this type:


The guy that was supposed to fit it went awol and I've ended up keeping it in the back of the van for ages. But a couple of weeks ago I took my courage in my hands and tried to fit it myself. (Out of an abundance of caution I decided not to cut any holes in the roof until the poptop was opening and closing as expected.)

Then I found that the hinges and brackets for the struts seem designed to work with a flat horizontal surface and don't follow the contours of the roof at all. So question 1 is whether I should build up mounting points for them with body filler or something?

The second issue is that the mounting points are above structural members, which is probably a good thing, but I can't see how to bolt through the roof and attach the nuts to secure them. Is this a problem with me being supplied the wrong fixings?

Do I need to drill right through everything and use longer bolts? Or just use self-tapping screws into the sheet metal of the roof?

Or is it more complex than that? Everything is resting purely on the tintop; close to some support, but no immediate connection to the structural members. That makes me a bit nervous, although I suppose it's not that heavy. Should I be supporting from underneath somehow? It's a bare panel van at the moment, it's all fairly accessible.

The instructions supplied were not very detailed, I'm basically making it up as I go along now. Any advice or insights much appreciated!

[Aidan]

I'd be looking at other pop top installations; if it's a copy of original Westfalia then it's designed for a purpose made shell at the gutter and roof line - the mosaic and Reimo were designed to go on top of tin tops

[therealchrisgray]

I'd be looking at other pop top installations;

Yeah, I'm in Sweden right now and not seeing a lot of these around. But then I remembered there's this website frequented by people who have vans like mine ...

I thought the edges of the top would sit in the gutter but it wasn't a good fit, it seems to sit more or less on the contour above the gutter. I might try mounting the hinges higher inside the shell bit that still doesn't answer the question of whether I should try to provide a flat surface on the tin roof for them to sit on. Or how to fix them.

[Rascal]

My van had a retro fitted westfalia mosaik roof they riveted the brackets to the roof skin....... Which was Terrible and not safe
Obviously as soon as I got it I corrected that and made the correct strengthining brackets to fit inside the van ( I belive they can be bought somwhere now) for the roof to bolt to and spread the load.. Ill dig out some pictures. But there's a video below where they do the same.. Clearly it's not the same roof you have but will give you an idea as to how to do it properly... Measure twice cut once etc...
Westy roof fitting

[therealchrisgray]

Thanks Rascal, that's the kind of help I need.