neilswheels
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 26, 2012
- Messages
- 729
- Reaction score
- 14
- Location
- leafy surrey
- Year of Your Van(s)
- 1971
- Van Type
- Ex Westy,
I have a 71 bus, it used to be a Westy, but got completely stripped before i bought it. When it came to me it had a sunroof outer panel, the alli runners and 4 sunroof supports.
This conversion has taken a long time, and there are close to 80 photo's to upload and add comments about, so it won't all be written in one hit.
Although this isn't a common conversion (most people 'in the know' told me to weld it up) I thought it may help a few, and may provide people with sunroofs a little more info.
So it appears that when Westy ordered a bus from VW, they ordered a minibus body with a sunroof roof panel so that it had a nice hole for their poptop. VW literally only fitted the roof panel, so there is no factory provision for drain tubes. I should add at this point that my roof was a mess, a 'zillion' little holes all over it, rust from where the FO got excited with a sander, and the vent holes for the fridge, which meant that the roof needed painting, which is just as well.
I thought about how to get drains in long and hard. i'd seen that some people had cut big holes on the inside of their pillars to get the drains down, but I didn't want to go that route, as it would mean welding them up because i wanted body colour on the interior, and the welding would melt the plastic pipe.
During this thought process, starring for hours, looking at how all the skins went together, I realised that i wouldn't be able to use the factory position for the middle sill drain, because i wouldn't be able to drill through the floor panel behind the B pillar, so they would have to drain under the van.
Next thing was how to get the plastic flexible pipe up or down the inside of the pillars without it folding over on its self and getting caught. The answer to this is the flexible rods that electricians use to feed cables through cavity walls.
I started on the drivers side B pillar. Feeling around with my fingers, i worked out that there was an indentation in the top of the roof panel, where it joins the side panel, probably where there should be a hole for the drain pipe. But back from this about 80mm was a hole just in front of the side window. This turned out to be just big enough for 12mm clear plastic pipe. I fed the rods down thru the hole and out into the van. They're very bendy. To the other end i tapped the plastic pipe and pulled it through, so now I had a pipe at the top of the sunroof that would reach the front drain hole.
Know I had to get it thru the bottom of the van. Having done the slider side all ready (which i'll do next) I thought i knew how the floor panels,sills and bellypans were assembled. So first of all I tank cut through the inner strengthening channels on the side panel to get the pipe to the floor. Then I worked out where to drill the belly pan to get the pipe out
So I tank cut thru the belly pan, then tank cut a smaller hole in the floor behind the line of the interior panel. from my experience on the slider side, I thought there would be another vertical skin under the floor that I would have to get through, so I cut another hole in the cab area of the floor to have a little look thru, but there isn't, so one too many holes number one! You do however, need to tank cut another hole in the bottom of the sill, which is behind the bellypan. When you do this, aim for the outside of the van. This will give you two stepped holes, and will mean that you won't kink the pipe getting it through the floor, thereby stopping the water getting out, something I learned on the Slider side, which i'll get to. So the tube is now through the floor and out the bottom of the van just behind the jacking point.
That's it for tonight, more later.
This conversion has taken a long time, and there are close to 80 photo's to upload and add comments about, so it won't all be written in one hit.
Although this isn't a common conversion (most people 'in the know' told me to weld it up) I thought it may help a few, and may provide people with sunroofs a little more info.
So it appears that when Westy ordered a bus from VW, they ordered a minibus body with a sunroof roof panel so that it had a nice hole for their poptop. VW literally only fitted the roof panel, so there is no factory provision for drain tubes. I should add at this point that my roof was a mess, a 'zillion' little holes all over it, rust from where the FO got excited with a sander, and the vent holes for the fridge, which meant that the roof needed painting, which is just as well.
I thought about how to get drains in long and hard. i'd seen that some people had cut big holes on the inside of their pillars to get the drains down, but I didn't want to go that route, as it would mean welding them up because i wanted body colour on the interior, and the welding would melt the plastic pipe.
During this thought process, starring for hours, looking at how all the skins went together, I realised that i wouldn't be able to use the factory position for the middle sill drain, because i wouldn't be able to drill through the floor panel behind the B pillar, so they would have to drain under the van.
Next thing was how to get the plastic flexible pipe up or down the inside of the pillars without it folding over on its self and getting caught. The answer to this is the flexible rods that electricians use to feed cables through cavity walls.
I started on the drivers side B pillar. Feeling around with my fingers, i worked out that there was an indentation in the top of the roof panel, where it joins the side panel, probably where there should be a hole for the drain pipe. But back from this about 80mm was a hole just in front of the side window. This turned out to be just big enough for 12mm clear plastic pipe. I fed the rods down thru the hole and out into the van. They're very bendy. To the other end i tapped the plastic pipe and pulled it through, so now I had a pipe at the top of the sunroof that would reach the front drain hole.
Know I had to get it thru the bottom of the van. Having done the slider side all ready (which i'll do next) I thought i knew how the floor panels,sills and bellypans were assembled. So first of all I tank cut through the inner strengthening channels on the side panel to get the pipe to the floor. Then I worked out where to drill the belly pan to get the pipe out
So I tank cut thru the belly pan, then tank cut a smaller hole in the floor behind the line of the interior panel. from my experience on the slider side, I thought there would be another vertical skin under the floor that I would have to get through, so I cut another hole in the cab area of the floor to have a little look thru, but there isn't, so one too many holes number one! You do however, need to tank cut another hole in the bottom of the sill, which is behind the bellypan. When you do this, aim for the outside of the van. This will give you two stepped holes, and will mean that you won't kink the pipe getting it through the floor, thereby stopping the water getting out, something I learned on the Slider side, which i'll get to. So the tube is now through the floor and out the bottom of the van just behind the jacking point.
That's it for tonight, more later.