My Bay is fitted with an early Devon Pop top. I have managed to get it somewhat watertight, and also looking tidy after a repaint. However it is going to need a new canvas at some point, and the wood supporting the poptop looks a bit rotten and will need replacing, which is a full strip down. I have the chance of a later Devon poptop from a scrap van. It is a more curved shape and looks like it will be more watertight. I helped the chap remove it when the van was scrapped and all it was fitted to was a hammered up lip of the van roof metal, and there was no wood. I don’t know. If the hole in the roof is the same size, and weather it will fit without a load of work. Has anybody any opinions? Long term I am temped with a replacement westfalia roof, but I’m not sure how long I will be keeping the bay, and whether it’s worth the expense.
I don't know how easy the Devon roof swap is, but the Westy roof will need the central roof brace and rear part of the roof welding back in so it's a big job.
This ^^^ As far as I know, Westfalia were shipped sun roof busses by VW, so you'd need all the bits that Devon cuf out off.
Early Devon poptops are a bit strange. Others managed to design theirs with about 10 pieces including the mechanism, a few nuts and bolts and a simple straight canvas. Devon used 100's to make them, fitted a crazy self folding bellows and a suspended insulated head lining but then fitted them as if they were nailing up a stock fence. Maybe the reason Devon furniture and build quality was so poor and rushed was because they spent too much of the budget on the roof. If it were me, unless your concertina bellows is in good condition I'd go for that later Devon roof for ease of effort but it won't be quite as nice inside IMO. Looks tidy down though.
Yes, I think it may be a better option, my canvas is ok, but i can just see a load of work ahead to get it sorted. I ended up buying the rest of the van for parts, after I helped take the later roof off the van, it’s a shame I didn’t just get it at the time and transfer it over to my van, it seems much lighter. I’ll get in touch with the guy and make a plan.
I've just refurbed my old style Devon Poptop. It really isn't that bad but yes, that's how they fired them all. The hole was cut and then the metal around the edge was bent up right and a price welded into each corner. Then a wooden frame was mounted around the outside of that lip it which the lower plinth was bolted to. The canvas is screwed into the plinth and wooden frame at the bottom using aluminium strips and at the top, riveted to the roof cap again, using ali strips. From the research I don't, if you can save it, keep the original plastic coated canvas as it's far superior to anything you'd get else where. "Sitting on the dock of my Bay...."
The extra bits were riveted onto mine...or was it wood screws? Both perhaps. Could have been nails! Pretty sure these are original extending down to the inner gutter level. I assumed they and that other bit doubled as strengthening for bunks that I didn't have or want so I chucked them and welded up the gaps.
I've had one. Devon roof is light and airy - Westy roof is pure function crammed with "stuff". Devon furniture you can burn and know you're doing mankind a favour - Westy stuff you kind of have to keep and there's too much of it. In effect baring in mind I can't undo the hole in the roof, I've kept the roof Devon must have outsourced to somebody competent, undone everything Devon themselves did and done it properly. Or did Devon start as poptop makers and get sucked unwillingly into conversions? @Poptop2 will know.
The original company was began by a chap called Jack White in a garden shed in Sidmouth, and traded as 'J P WHITE'. Jack was a carpenter builder with a passion for VW's. He began producing the caravette in earnest from his garden shed in 1956, moving into the Alexandria works, a former gasworks site at SidmoutH, with it's own railway sidings. In 1960. It employed 75 local tradesmen and were producing 1000 caravettes a year. Jack died in in 1963 from an heart attack whilst driving at the Alexandria works factory.
Quit whilst you are ahead. To me it seems like loads of work for no major benefit. Save yourself the time, money and hassle. Spend it on a camper holiday instead
But did they make these poptops themselves I wonder? I just can't get my head around a company that could make such a complex and high quality precision made poptop, then screwing it onto a van using wood that looked like it was from a skip, plates soooo roughly snipped and a screws that look like you scraped them out of your odd screws tin. Or maybe he had someone with less of a chippy mentality running the poptop making and a bunch of animals fitting them. Companies could be like that when I were a lad.
The poptop was made in house after a short association with Canterbury Pitt. The same as Danbury had. Peter Pitt was a visionary and an interesting chap btw. Here’s a link to something I wrote about him yonks ago http://thelatebay.com/index.php?threads/some-danbury-facts.36776/#post-644083
I wondered because dormobile used Martin walker (?) roofs. The chasm between the neatness of the poptop builders and the fitters is a thing of wonder all the same.
Hit the nuke button on our Devon roof last year. Although to be fair to it has been trusty/watertight for the past five years with a tonne of bathroom sealant holding it together. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
And this Devon roof comes from 1974. Its a one piece pressed chromate plated aluminium alloy sheet with transverse stiffening ribs spot welded underneath. The centre of the roof is a slightly raised ridge. There is a foam mesh glued to the underside for sound damping. The inner panel is a thinner sheet of zinc chromate covered aluminium alloy pop riveted on. It smacks of aerospace technology, not at the usual Devon level.. This is where I cut into the reinforcement rib round the vent hole. I re fitted the rib at the edge of the new hole.
Strangely, the chap has been in touch as he wants rid of the later Devon roof due to it cluttering his garage. So it sounds like that’s the way I’m going to go. I’ll go pick it up when the time is right. Then I can strip off the old roof and fettle whatever needs to be done ahead of fitting the new one on. I have the headbanger cupboard already fitted in my van, so it must have the roof cut in the same place as they are flush with the cupboard. Apart from the front chassis welding this is probably the last big job that needs doing.
