Just noticed this morning, one of my struts looks a bit out of place, is it the spring? (sorry they're sideways, tried rotating the photo but still comes out the same) Good? Not so good?
Hmmmm, how is it fixed the other side of that photo? Is there a bolt, weld.....? Get a camera around the back and compare the good one with the bad one. Intriguing!
A similar thing happened to ours. check the bar that goes through the middle I sent broke where it enters and centres in the spring. Ours broke at the end close by the spring centre. If it is the middle bar broke, NLA VW do a new one which fits well.
Looking at them, they're both out of line.. Are they repairable ? I've looked on NLA, JK, VW Heritage & eBay, no luck
It looks as though you could pop some sort of bolt through it to line it up, as long as it wasn’t fully tight and was a suitable diameter. It would act like a sort of spindle/axel.
As it happens, my van's going in for some bodywork next week so hopefully I can get them to do something like that. Tempted to open one up to work out what's going on, but I know I'll just mess it up.
They are really simple, a long spring and a cable , when the mechanism is unfolded there’s no tension , but you do need the whole mechanism off the roof and to support the roof with something else
? not much more to tell i took off the H frame and fitted some gas struts: Stonor 2019 (Rich Coxhill photo) Wolfsburg Bus Crew by Rob E, on Flickr i got these from "space roofs".
@79westy Here is the NLAVW link to the part I mentioned: https://nlavw.com/roof/434-westfalia-steel-push-bar-for-t2-bay-pop-top-roof-mechanism.html
I think the message here is your hinges are worn, more so because without that bar, they get twisted on the way up. After you fix the hinges if thats what you do, the bar is a good idea.
I’ve never had the push bar off but I have taken the springs out and I think you’re going to have to do that first, or at least release the cable attached to them. You’ll see the cable that winds around the circular central part of the mechanism. This connects to a coil spring inside the lower strut. If you take the two pins out each side, these look like rivets with a toothed washer on, you can move the struts so the tension is off and then unhook the cable. Make sure you have the roof supported. I think it will make sense when you do it. Take some pictures to show what you did. I'm adding some of mine though they might not show everything you need. The last picture shows how I added some washers to give a bit more tension to the springs.
