Early Devon Concertina roof refurb guide

Discussion in 'Restorations' started by Stan, Feb 26, 2013.

  1. I hope this guide will be useful to others considering refurbishing their early Devon Concertina roof.

    (Splitting the guide into 2 since I cant paste all the words in 1 window)

    A mildly curved aluminium sheet in the middle, with roof vent, underpinned with aluminium angled strips popped riveted together.
    Outer edge pressed aluminium moulding, fits to the middle section via a H section Windscreen type rubber seal with filler strip. Bolted to the outer edge, hinges in the form of telescopic tubes, spring loaded inside help 'pop' the roof up a predefined height.
    The PVC Bellows is folded concertina style, held via aluminium strip riveted to inner roof.
    Front and rear edges of this bellows are riveted to the outer edge via another strip.

    Waterproof Vinyl covers the 1001 rivets and is supposed to stop water ingress. Lower edge of the bellows is held via aluminium strip screwed to the 'top of the moulded Fibreglass Roof section, bolted to the van steel roof.
    The bellows has additional straps limiting vertical height extension and imparting even roof tension.
    Underneath a vinyl headliner held to the strengthener strips of the central section with C clips and then U edging popper over.
    A white plastic elevating roof vent, pops open via small spring loaded hinges.
    Simple eh? No overcomplicated and over engineered junk quite frankly , probably good in the 60's but not today.
    Those rivets move as the roof flexes, metal weakens, rocking rivets let water get past. The more the rivets move the more the roof flexes and so on.

    I applied tar based replacement lead flashing band under the roof, it helped remove condensation and reduced drumming and shaking of the roof.

    Riveted galvanised U strips from B&Q builder section across the roof to stiffen the central section, with additional made up corner pieces.
    Every single rivet on the roof, replaced with longer and slightly bigger rivets. I wiped them underneath with a sealant first before inserting to roof.
    D- day 2012!
    Lifted the roof up, placed a few strips of wood to take the weight, loosened the hinges from the inner sides of the van body.
    With a knife slice the bellows all the way round and the material drops onto the van body. The roof is now free to unscrew and slide off. A helper is recommended to avoid damage but throw a thick curtain or similar over side of van edge.
    Remove outer rim from the inner by slicing the rubber seal between them. Cut away all remnants of bellows, from van and roof. Keep for ref.you need to measure where the inner bellows stiffening straps are located and remove metal rods inside the bellows.
    Unscrew Roof vent and the small hinges too. Repaint or replace.
    Unbolt Telescopic hinges from the roof but dont take them apart yet. Unscrew lockdown catches also.
    Drill out rivets from Roof vent frame.
    Remove whatever the top roof is covered with, mine had rubberised paint finish on, should be vinyl. No need to make that pristine just smooth as you can get.
    Drill out all rivets from edge of the central roof that hold the aluminium strip on. Mark them up (long ones are for N/S and O/S , short ones are front and back) Clean up and paint with Smoothrite.
    Disconnect hinge fittings from the outer edge trim. Strip paint from outer edge, you will need to respray this (mine was Pastel White L90D) Clean inside and out, make it smooth. You also have aluminium strips front and rear which need to be drilled out. Clean them, paint with white Smoothrite and leave to dry.
    I would recommend replacing the mounting points for the hinges to the roof also the old chrome hold down catches with new stainless ones. I got most of my stuff from Campershop. (http://poptop-parts.co.uk/devon-bw68.htm)
    Although the Hinge brackets came painted white I was not impressed with the thin coat of paint so I sprayed with etch primer and resprayed in Pastel White Celly.
    I replaced all nuts, bolts, screws etc with stainless ones.
    Now the telescopic rods that make the roof pop!
    After 40 years the springs get soggy so I went for new ones (Campershop) These rods are a triangle setup - a long bar to push the roof up with and makes a join to the mounts at each end. There are cheesehead screws that lock the outer rods to the inner rod ends and the springs inside. BE CAREFUL when unscrewing these!
    Clean everything, strip, smooth and respray with Pastel white.
    Fit the new springs and compress the outer rods until the thread line up with the hole in the tube (see pictures) replace with new screws.
    The Roof vent frame needs to be cleaned up and repainted with smoothrite again.........

    Next window
     
    bekyip and Lord Congi like this.
  2. Second Part....

    Order waterproof vinyl for the centre of the roof , (Woolies trim.) Glue to the roof via High Temperature Impact Adhesive like Alpha.
    I used a roll of foam (camping foam for ground layer is perfect) glued to the underside to help insulate. I went a bit overboard here but its paid off. Applied a reflective plastic layer (Poundshop, emergency tent) glued to the underside inner roof channels by double sided tape. After that I glued a thin foam packing sheet using the same method, (only because the white headliner vinyl was thin and I could see the frame underneath). I stretched the white vinyl headliner using C clips (Woolies Trim) to outer edge of the inner roof section. Incidentally all these layers were trimmed back at the roof vent hole. I use U shaped edge channel to tap over the edge and finish both the roof vent inner and outer edge of the central roof.
    Refit the rods from your old bellows to the inside of the new.Take the bellows (Campershop £400+ expensive but well made. I went for the plain one not with clear windows as I know they will fail again in about 10 years time) position it centrally on the roof. Measure the centre of the roof sides and mark with pencil on the roof underside and also on the bellows. Take the straps that come with it and position them in the same locations as the original
    Take the 2 long strips and pop rivet them back on the roof through the original holes, along the sides of the central roof don’t forget the straps.
    Turn the whole thing over placing on a table with books or something to lift it up by a few inches. Apply glue to the top of the roof and the underside of the vinyl. Leave to dry for a few minutes then carefully place on the roof working your way across from one side smoothing out any bubbles. Fold the vinyl under the roof leaving about 1.5 inches overhang underneath.
    Cut the vinyl about an inch over the roof vent hole and again fold under the metal.
    Run a generous bead of white PU glue under the Roof Vent frame. Position over the roof hole and using oversized flat head rivets pop it onto the roof. Smear more PU glue under the rivets first.
    Turn upside down on your table again. At this stage I recommend you walk away and rest for a day the next stage is a sod!
    Run the new H shaped weather seal that holds the outer roof edge to the central roof section. (Seals are JK bundle kit) I got a new roof vent from Campershop and fitting tool for the seal.
    Apply White PU glue to the inside of the H seal on both sides, but only a little and run it around the centre roof section edge. Cut it a little longer and join its edges with Impact adhesive. Place the outer rim over the inner roof and using a flat blade screwdriver or paint scraper (with a rag underneath it, slip the seal over it)
    This is tricky (swearing helps) but eventually once the seal is on, run a small bead of PU glue under the top side of the rubber seal especially at the corners. Using your insert tool, fit the rubber filler strip in.
    Pull the bellows over at the front and apply the short aluminium strip pop riveting it into the outer rim. Smear PU glue under the rivets first, repeat for the back, dont forget the straps. (longer straps)
    Fit hinge mounts to the outer rim, dont tighten the bolts too much. Fit the catches to the mounts with stainless bolts.
    Turn rightside up. Fit new Rubber seal in the roof vent frame channel, it just fits in the top. Fit the Roof Vent to the frame.(I refitted the original spring loaded small hinges after a repaint, but you can get new ones) using stainless bolts.
    Protect van (curtains on the top of the van roof). lift the roof over the top. lay it flat in position. Use blocks to lift roof to a suitable height for you to work under.
    Locate the telescopic poles on both sides. Bolt to roof mounts first. If you can compress them before and use a strap to stop them springing up, failing that lift the roof slightly enough so you can locate a screw in the hole on the van body. Use the weight of the roof above you to compress the poles and locate the rest of the mounting holes in the van. Screw the rest in again using stainless screws. Repeat on the other side.
    You connect the bottom of the bellows to the van body. Fit the aluminium strip screwing it onto the fibreglass mount!
    That is the next installment....since I ran out of time and good weather last year.
    Hope this all makes some sense so far?
    Pictures here
    http://s1090.beta.photobucket.com/u...ishment?&_suid=136187177943907607604465324229
    Stan
     
  3. Finally some pics

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  4. Oh forgot to add - slot in a new outer seal that covers the bellows when roof in the closed position.
     
  5. good work, good guide.

    I'm doing the same on my Devon at the moment. Quick question.... I've removed the inner seal and the centre aluminium section out and removed the frame from underneath and plan on getting a copy made using the original as template and the rear has had a bang (optional ooo eerrr missus!) and damaged it. The front offside edge (say about 400mm from the corner and up the one side) of the section has a slight curve in it. Did/does yours have this?? Not sure whether it should have a straight edge or not? It's just that's where the majority of the water ingress seemed to be, in addition to the perished inner seal and leaking rivits. not sure whether this is factory designed or a mistake. thoughts??

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  6. Hi
    Yes mine had a similar bulge. This is just 40 years of stretching, as the roof bobbles up and down.
    Everytime you close the door the air pressure pops the roof up too. I would suggest anyone doing this job, assuming the roof centre is ok other than such a bulge, file it down so its level with the rest. It is supposed to be straight and line up with the outer edge. There is plenty of play with the H seal but mine was a very tight fit and made it difficult to refit. So spend the time, lie them both on the floor and see if there are irregular shaped edges like yours.

    I was tempted to cut a new inner sheet also but overall it was in good condition. As I said in the guide this roof is far from perfect but of all the Poptops around I prefer it as its quite subtle on the van, you dont have a GRP Bathtub sat on your roof! ;)
    Good luck with it PM if you get stuck with anything, I wont be doing another one of these I can tell you!
     
  7. Nice one Stan, thanks for taking the time to write it up
     
  8. Now that is very very helpful thing to have written up. Thankyou.
     
  9. Thats brillant :thumbsup: i agree the devon pop top is the nicest looking out them all:cool: , iv bought one to put on my van, but it will have to have a recon first, so this will help great :p
     
  10. hi pal can you tell me how u get the sheet of the inside of the pop top as u look up from inside the van u seem to have alreay removed it on the first pic ? cheers
     
  11. A bit late!!! Sorry only just noticed your quesiton! The sheet you mention I guess is the inner liner - that should be white vinyl as on my finished one? Get a Stanley (not related!) and just slice it. If you have a sheet of wood or similar then its probably been screwed on or glued in which case you need to be a little hamfisted with it? I had a sheet on plywood under mine which just unscrewed (thanks PO!!)
     
  12. Great article!
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PZ2udz5_N_-gZjMdvqdcCV1WOtOd7rKG
    I popped my top for the first time last week and was pleasantly surprised to see a more-or-less intact concertina canvas. Looks repareable to my untrained eye.
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RftSHX2VkfBjMWFsNJ2y6Y-qOcLtqxa0
    Vent certainly needs some attention as it is letting in water...and the sunken roof behind it isn't helping.
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RmEjs2t-9dQhprNIUqlZ1n__5Fd_uICV
    Reading the article I am definitely missing the metal strips which rivet the fabric in place, and the rubber seal fixed to the base...which is a bit wonky and not sitting perfectly.
    Quite a bit of work needs doing to it, but that has been said about the whole vehicle :rolleyes:

    Can't figure out how to include photos from an iPad!
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2018
    paulcalf likes this.
  13. Your roof doesn’t look too bad, I don’t think your vent is the original, in case you are looking for spare parts. I set at mine with silicon sealer, round the vent and replaced most of the pop rivets, and silicon sealed them too. The bus is finally watertight for the first time since I got it a year ago, fingers crossed.
     
    Ermintrude likes this.
  14. Thanks for taking a look Kerrin. It's not too bad hey.
    Good to know that the vent isn't an original. I'm going down the silicon road, for now, to keep me dry until a proper reconditioning of the whole poptop can be undertaken.
    Glad yours is water tight...for me, for now, the best thing I've purchased was a £70 van cover! Haha My dad suggested I just keep it permenantly on and cut some holes out for the windows
     
  15. I have a van cover, that came with the camper. The previous owner used it a lot, and the inside was very damp. They do seem to trap damp inside. Make sure you air the van out when the weather is good. I haven’t used it yet.
     
  16. Your thread is very helpful Stan, can I ask if there are many differences between the Devon with Concertina bellows and the Devon with the flat bellows? So far have noticed that there are no tension straps and I have read that the flat canvas stops the top being extended too far.
     
  17. Hey, great thread, my late father in law followed this and did a great job of restoring ours. We unfortunately never got around to refitting the telescopic arms on the side after getting the headliner fitted, and seem to have lost the bolts to connect to the side and the roof - any advice on what I need to refit these, and where I can get fixings?Thanks In advance! Ian
     
  18. @Stan any chance you could re upload the photos of your pop top restoration, i have been reading your guide, but it says photos are no longer available, appreciate this was over 10 years ago! Thanks.
     

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