Well I've been working on my bus for the last 7 years, literally 'from the ground up', which brings me to the roof, apart from a new loom, the last big job. We've had various leaks from the roof/poptop for the last few years so this winter it's getting sorted once and for all. The bottom of the skirt is simply held on with screws through aluminium angle strip. One thing which happened as I was undoing the screws was that the springs put more and more strain onto the fabric which was still fastened to the van. Eventually the tension would be enough to rip the last few inches of fabric before I could undo it. I tried various methods of restraining the Poptop mechanism but the most effective was to use some clamps to prevent the springs going all the way up.
If you remove all the fabric and then squeeze the triggers and instantly release the clamps, how high do you think it will fly?
Once the skirt was free all the way around I needed to close the Poptop and keep the mechanism lowered as I undid the screws holding the top on. Luckily I'd already taken all the windows out so I put a strap around the 'X' part of the mechanism both sides and then strapped the rear 'X' in a similar manner. This meant that as the top was removed the mechanism stayed squashed which made it much easier to lift the top off away from the van. If you don't keep the 'X's squashed you've got a very high lift to remove the top.
A chap makes a simple mistake....does anyone let them forget? It was ok until you typed "again", very cruel.
your learner car is very dirty but now we all have your mobile number to get ppi calls sent to - thanks.
What's wrong with these pictures? Answers on a postcard to: Oh my God what a bodge competition A Professional Garage, Really! c/o They charged HOW much? Insurance Rip Off Lane Glad it wasn't my money.
Do you think I may have been sold Payment Protection unnecessarily? I'll have to see if there are any companies who can help me claim it back.
I got the Poptop base off this morning but the photos haven't migrated from my phone to the iPad yet so I'll stick those up this evening. There's quite a few holes but nothing too tragic and, certainly to me, they all look easily repairable. The glass fibre of the Poptop is a different matter though. The bas****s at the garage managed to crack or deform every screw and bolt hole on the top and the base. I'm livid at the shockingly poor quality of their work. The garage is one who are recommended by the insurance companies and repair all sort of weird, wonderful and valuable vehicles. It doesn't show very well on the photos but rather than spend £20 getting a new seal, or even using some mastic they decided in their gash shortcut way to use bloody great staples through the seal AND the fibreglass. morons. Thoughtless Idiots
That's uncanny, I've just had a message about PPI !!! It's ok though, I've just referred the callers number to the GPO nuisance calls department. Apparently the police are hunting down these people and prosecuting them to the full extent of the law. I'll warrant the caller won't be doing that again for between 18 months to 3 years.
GPO? blimey you're showing your age mate, haven't you seen the modern adverts with Maureen Lipman? it's all about Buzby now.
In a way it's a shame the roof is now off as they would just deny everything. It'd be interesting to know what they charged the insurance company for...
£4500.00 I'm not sure they could deny it but it was done three or four years ago so I doubt I'd actually achieve anything apart from blowing off a bit of steam. I certainly wouldn't let them try to correct it even if they offered. I am really annoyed but life is too short so I'll get it all sorted properly myself and hope they've gone out of business.
As promised, pictures of the holes in my roof. Considering this bit of the van hasn't seen the light of day for 40 years its not too bad. The first two pictures are the front where I had an emergency patch put on from the inside a year ago.
The gutters look bad but they aren't rusty at all, it's just 40 years of crud that's dropped into them as I took the top off.
I'll stick these photos up as they may help anyone else looking to get new seals. The rubber seal (only at the front and rear of the top, as @Baysearcher and @Razzyh said. And in profile it's a "P" and not a tadpole shape.
