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Remove open air!!


RXMarko
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Hi all, new member here.

Proud owner of a 1.4 16v 100hp open air Lupo!! Open air roof (as many are) is in a bit of a bad way and I want to replace it but with a solid roof.

My question is, has anyone had any experience replacing the actual roof panel!!?? Plenty of lupos about at breakers yards...

Cheers!!

Edited by RXMarko
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i've done it once. nightmare. any roof work has got to be the most time consuming difficult work ever. 

it is possible, but you need to know how to weld, and cut and weld and cut and weld... you get the idea.

entire insides needs to be stripped. all glass out. dash covered (or removed).

armed with a piece of cardboard  cut slightly larger than roof hole, in the breakers yard cut out the roof section you need.

before welding in place, cut the section about 0.5mm smaller than the hole, following the edge very accurately, so the gap is near perfect all the way round. 

tack weld mid way (not the corners!) down each length, working in pairs across the panel. then work your way til you get to the corners. only tack welds every 100mm or so. it will warp. cut some of the welds where the warps are, hammer some of the welds to stretch the metal where it has pulled in. you know when you've got it right as the roof will go nice and tight like a drum. then its a case of hammering here and there, cutting and rewelding till the profile ismjust right. 

more tack welds, closer and closer together, grind off excess welds without overheating the metal. remove added internal open air structure. clean and fill with filler... done. respray. source new roof liner. refit everything. :) happy days

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i started with mig being lazy, then realised pretty quickly, that you need to get the welds to pull in. switched to tig, which took much longer. you know what, the biggest pain was protecting everything from weld sparks. it took as long stripping and refitting (it was a mk2 golf with open air folding flappy roof thing- yuk!), as doing the roof.

cj1 runs a rally car. can't remember what class though... he'll give you loads of info :) i used to 'engineer' some vwcup cars, which was a fun class!

Edited by mk2
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Not sure why you are adding weight in a steel roof for rallycross. I can appreciate the likelihood of rolling is high, but you will have a rollcage. 

How about fibreglass roof panel moulded on another Lupo and bonded onto the nubbin of roof you have left in your open air?

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The weight is negligible but the MSA regs require all sunroofs to be filled. So yes a fibreglass panel would do but I’d have to check if it would pass the scruteneers checks. I know a steel infill will for sure. 

I also want it to look half decent and last.

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Yes you are right. My son will be using it in the juniors then I can use it in the new 1400 production seniors class with BTRDA clubman RX. The juniors has tighter controls than seniors in terms of safety.

To be honest I’m not dead set on any solution to this, it’s just good to know what’s been tried and tested. 

The junior weight limit is 950kg including driver so weight of a panel isn’t going to hurt.

All great advise so far so thanks lads.

Ill let you know how I get on!!

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