Replacing the roof skin??

[jos]

G'day

Got a problem here that i thought you guys would know what to do. The cars got some sort of aftermarket sliding roof that was fitted sometime in it's life. the hole is as close to the size of the bonnet. I want to replace the whole roof or do i have any other option to cover it up to make it legal and safe?

[Hurricane]

my bro had a similar issue on his 1200 wagon hes doin up right now.
had a sun roof and we wanted it gone.
lookin into welding it up and 90% of people said not to bother as a roof is really had not to warp.
we end up cutting a roof off a dona car removing both skins a swappin them over.
just tryin to get use of a spot welder to weld the good roof on.

dan.

["Z" UTE]

Forget weling the skin on, go see a panel beater and ask him about the 2 part adhesive they use. Needs a special caulking gun, the 2 parts mix in the nozzle on the way to the tip. Cut your donor roof skin for an exact fit, drill a few guide holes and temporary fastening holes, lift the skin off, apply the adhesive, line it up using pk screws in your alignment holes, and temporarily fasten the skin down with more pk screws. When the adhesive has gone off, remove the screws and fill the holes with more adhesive. When all the adhesive has dried, sand off the squeezed out excess, prime and paint. That is what the shops do these days, no need to weld, and structurally sound.

cheers Chuck.

[NME308]

Forget weling the skin on, go see a panel beater and ask him about the 2 part adhesive they use. Needs a special caulking gun, the 2 parts mix in the nozzle on the way to the tip. Cut your donor roof skin for an exact fit, drill a few guide holes and temporary fastening holes, lift the skin off, apply the adhesive, line it up using pk screws in your alignment holes, and temporarily fasten the skin down with more pk screws. When the adhesive has gone off, remove the screws and fill the holes with more adhesive. When all the adhesive has dried, sand off the squeezed out excess, prime and paint. That is what the shops do these days, no need to weld, and structurally sound.

cheers Chuck.

I waz gunna suggest that jos welding skills had better be a bit more polished than mine...

But that information of yours wins hands down! I wonder if this sort of magic in a tube is available to the general public? MMMMMMMMM the possibilities!!!

Cheers,
Jason

[Hurricane]

ive heard of this glue, didnt think it would pass as beening structually ok?
must be some tuff stuff.

[jos]

Thats the first time i've heard of something like that Chuck, but i still can't help wondering with the size as big as mine, a few thousands kms of driving and it would lead to cracking around the joint! but i am curious about that 2 part adhesive and how it works. might go to see the panel beater.

[takai]

The bit which makes Chucks even easier is that you can use a joddling tool to create a lap join around the sunroof hole, onto which you can lay a cut to size piece of roof. This means that you dont have a step up to the filler panel, and gives a good half inch or so of lap join for the adhesive to really set properly. Its what ive done with the panel on my AE86, and it works a treat.

The tool i have looks like this:

And is designed for use with an air chisel to hammer in the lap join.

I did mine with Sikaflex and 6 spot welds in the corners and middle.

["Z" UTE]

I have a dedicated air operated joddling tool, pain in the arse 1 squeeze of the trigger one half inch flange. Takai's looks like you hold the trigger on the air hammer down, and run along the entire length of metal in one hit, brilliant!

jos, there is a TA22 running around in Sydney that had the roof skin replaced 3 years ago, still no separation

Takai's fix would work for you, just ensure you get the support ribs from the roof of a donor car. The more structurally rigid the better the job, with less chance of movement later on stuffing the paint job.

cheers Chuck.

[takai]

Most sunroofs are installed just forwards of the only rib in the roof of the car anyway.

And yes, you can joddle an entire length with mine

[Shifty]

we welded up a hole in my roof (from an aerial) with no problems, but it was a fairly hairy process waiting for a big 'pop' from the skin warping. we kept plenty of wet rags around it to absorb the heat & poured water on immediately after each weld.

i wouldn't recommend it...

["Z" UTE]

Yeah warpage is a bastard, keeping the area around the weld cool, is spot on, but pouring water on the weld, simply hardens the metal, not good. If you are contemplating doing a lot of panel welding, think about using a low melting point mig wire, or filler rod, Silicone bronze is apparently the go. Less heat into the surrounding metal, with the advantage of being very easy to grind down as the filler is as soft as the panel metal. Piss your grinding disc off and fit a flap disc for a really nice finish.

cheers Chuck.

[jos]

we welded up a hole in my roof (from an aerial) with no problems, but it was a fairly hairy process waiting for a big 'pop' from the skin warping. we kept plenty of wet rags around it to absorb the heat & poured water on immediately after each weld.

i wouldn't recommend it...

I was reading this and thinking ..... okay water and wet rag is the trick..... then you said " i wouldn't recommend it" :-) with all this hassle and money that i could be spending, i should just buy another body and transplant everything else over

[Gary]

Piss your grinding disc off and fit a flap disc for a really nice finish

sweet idea, flap wheels are cool. nice fine grit if you can get it, the finest i can find at bunnings/mitre10 is 120grit, the most coarse goes down to 40 i think

if you've never used em before, keep in mind they still put considerable heat into steel. you do still need to grind with care given the steel is so thin, you need to keep patience with it (easy to crack it after a short while and get a bit too pressure happy)

if you're gentle they tend to last longer too

[RONA]

http://www.toymods.org.au/forums/sho...t=roof&page=29

Maybe speak with him, pics are half way down the page

[mattysshop]

i've put a few tacks on a roof skin with the mig as it was 'streched' and wouldn't stop 'popping' up and down... the heat shrunk it enough to get a bit of filler > block... and a few good coats of highbuild > block... block block block hahaha.. but she is right now!!

used a wet rag, and ground off the tacks... but it came up alot stronger!!