Club 80-90 Forums

Been busy this week found a dead van with factory fitted sliding steel sunroof so I thought I'd have it in my panel van many hours of drilling later and carefully removing roof skin I'm left with the cassette that hold the sunroof, once it's removed time to start all over again on the van roof lol. Pics to follow soon
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John the links don't work mate

Here you go:

Theres one of those complete and removed in same way and available near me . when I last spoke with the bloke
£500 I think he wanted
Mike

that's the easy bit done, the inner gutters will be the fun bit I reckon, SyncroPete did it to his 16" Hi-Top, but the factory hi top has some of the same metal work as the sliding roof so not quite as big a job, and obviously no original metal roof to remove. The old hi top became a boat
I thought about doing this but decided it was easier just to buy a sunroof van which I did
£500 he's having a laugh, £100 is the going rate because of the work involved in doing the swap, cutting one off at the pillars is easy

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yes, I know that too Aiden but I be the conveyor of info, the one I clocked had the whole top from pillars up so had the metal roof everything but still a p*** about job if you had it given..
mike

Yeah £500 he's on glue! Got this One for £100 with a whole bunch of other stuff thrown in so wasn't to dear. The cassette is nearly ready to come out now just need to drill spots of from the outside which happens to be about twice the thickness of the inner sods law but this allows me just to use the spot welder to refit into the van saving hours on cleaning welds up etc Do u use your sunroof much Aiden?

Oh yes it's great, means I can stand up in the van and cook and watch what's going on, lovely to have it cracked open just a dage for ventilation at night (you will need to ensure that the drains are properly fitted, the ones in the B pillar go all the way to the bottom and out - these must work as there is a small ammount of water that passes the seal when it rains which goes into the internal gutters and out, first thing i did when I got the van was test the gutters with a watering can, and they are fine, though the rear right one drips onto the panel just beside my head which can sometimes wake me up with the plop plop sound, I really must put an extension on it) and I have fallen asleep before with the roof open on a clear night after watching the stars, when it's sunny I leave the roof partly open when it's parked up stops it turning into an oven, you can let the steam and cooking vapours or morning toilet pong out, generally it rocks, when it jammed shut I was gutted, but fortunately it reopened whilst off roading and has been fine since, there's just a slight bit of damage to one of the end stops
People always smile when they walk past and you are standing up with your head out too

I think ive found some suitable pipe for the drains and i did wonder about extending them as the lower rear corners on the van i bought it off were sh****d! The inner cassette/gutters seem to be really good no signs of leakage anywhere on the backside of the headliner when i removed it. just a small ammount off grot round one corner of the sunroof hole on the skin but wont take much to sort that out now the skins loose on the bench. Just thought it different and quite trick to have in the panel van that already had a leaking poor quality after market sunroof fitted and buggered headliner. the caravelle roof is far to spotless to disturb and with the panel van having no windows i thought it would be good to let some light in/heat out during the summer
Will be getting on with it again once ive finished putting the front arch back in found some rust behind fuel filler but luckily hadnt ruined the panel yet so it can go back in. the bit in my hand was badly pinholed and new bit welded in and zinc primed. Just need to fab a bit up for the b pillar to get rid off the pitted steel i dont like rust lol
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managed to get an hour in the garage on wednesday night and fab up a repair section on the b pillar. welded it in and gave it a quick grind up and a coat of zinc primer to stop the flash rusting. ( the snotty looking stuff to the right of b pillar is seam sealer not crow s**t welding) i need to go back over and fill in the pop holes and by the time its had a flap wheel over it it should be a near metal finish i hope!
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Got an early finish from work this afternoon so cracked on with the roof and removed the cassette after an hour and a half of drilling spot welds i finally have the cassette ready to drop into the van when i remove the old skin
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got some more time on the van this morning, decided to repair and refit wheel arch before doing any more work on the roof.
I made a piece up for the inside return behind the fuel filler neck and let it into the arch panel. Pic shows old piece that was rotten looks good and metal finished up well
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so then i fitted the arch back up n gave a quick clean up ready to underseal thouroghly to stop and moisture from rotting it again



soon be time to remove the rest of the previous owners army green paint and then decide what colour to paint it

Managed to get a weekend of work so got cracked on with the roof job. Removed the old roof skin off the panel van and started to unlock cross braces. Took two of us just over 2 hours which I didn't think was bad. With a bit of luck il have it somewhere near done this week if I'm working local.

Brave man! It reminds me of the roof skin panel I unpicked last year...there must be about 200 spot welds round the gutters and in the screen surround!
All the best with it