So I intend to take my Devon concertina pop top off and refurb things later in the year but at the moment I just need to make it functional. When I am driving along the wind is making the roof alloy top flex in and out and I am worried it is going to fatigue it and cause a stress fracture. On the left side the internal strengthener bars have come down with a gap between them and the roof. If I re-rivet in these places, is that likely to get rid of the flex? Also when replacing the rubber top J seal. Is there some way (gap in channel) to get the old out and new one in or is it just pushed and worked in all the way around?
Yes, pop riveting will help stiffening .. you could take the ribs off, prepare the metal and glue as well as pop rivet using modern automotive panel adhesive. Every rivet beside a missing rivet is probably also loose so needs replacing. Then you need to make sure the top of the rivets on the outside are sealed too. Sometimes the forces on a poptop are quite large.. trying e.g. to drive into a gale could be interesting with a floppy poptop..
Would it not be better to use M4 dome head set screws with some type of o ring instead of rivets. I don’t understand how rivets can be the best solution here. I think I read in a thread on here about making up thicker slightly curved steel ribs to support the roof and stop it sagging in the middle. Any idea about the pop top seal?
Likely you'd find lots of broken bits if you looked. They're not known for sagging otherwise. No idea about the seal but @the 3 crispies probably does. Pretty sure t'was he who completely renovated his a few years ago.
Its probably why by the time they got to making my roof, they pressed the cap out of a single piece of aluminium sheet, and spot welded the ribs to the underside. A second sheet of aluminium was then pop riveted on underneath .. So there are only eight M8 holes in the cap near the edges where the bolts from the hinges go through at the corners, and the hole for the vent.
yeah was me pretty sure I had help well drinking tea whilst I worked. Stainless reriveted all old rivets, added strengtheners on all cross members and learnt a trick on how to make devon inner seal fit properly then added 25mm kingspan insulation. Cant upload pics as away and tinternet is poor. But added scrim foam and marine vinyl all was good until we decided to change colour of van oh well were both too short too notice.... google 20mm flat tees to give you any idea....
i`ve got extra reinforcement bars on my devon roof to that shown in your pic. i`ve a central bar running front to back (and trimmed around the light hatch) i`d defo go for bonding the bars to the roof where feasible as well as the rivets
So I have just re-riveted the loose rivers and the top is still very flexible. If you were to lightly press on your Devon top would it suddenly dent in it is mine still not right? Also the canvas has been replaced with a straight one so someone has messed about with the roof. The supports might not even be the original ones and just some DIY alloy pieces? They are slightly U shaped. Anyone know if these are original or not?
The other rivets that hadnt yet fallen out may also be loose. Drill them all out, use panel adhesive to bond the rib and use the rivets to lock it in place.. If you dont like the ribs and they are bending get some aluminium U section or box section of larger profile and fit that. It will never survive a van surfer but it should not flex unduly .. Proper folding bellows are ?? £850 so everybody fits floppy canvas to annoy you.
So I replaced all the rivets loose including ones next to the loose ones. The centre rib is all tight but the roof will still buckle in if you even touch it or even less if the weather moves it. I am trying to think of something I can use instead of that centre rip as a temporary solution. I really need something that I can rivet but that has a curve or that I can put into a curve. A bit of aluminium U section just seems to flex both ways. Anything with a U or angle won’t really bend though so I am trying to picture what to use. I was thinking some kind of U or angle that I cut the sides so I can bend it into the shape of the roof and then weld/join it in that curved position. I can’t weld alloy and steel is probably too heavy…
Looking at your ali U sections, they're perhaps just not quite as curved as they used to be, but maintaining the upwards curve also depends on them being solidly fixed at each end.
I might just see if I can get new Ali U sections from somewhere and see if that helps. After looking again the curve of the roof is so slight really that I can’t see making anything accurately with such a slight curve.
If you overdo the curve on the ribs, but rivet from the middle out the roof will cause the curve to be reduced. Use a couple of tree trunks about 30cm apart to bend the ali sections.. do it in sections. Leave them too long so you can get the curve to the end then cut to length..
