130 Station Wagon with side fold pop top build

Next I moved onto the frame for the roof. This time I used 125x40x3mm Aluminium box section. Jaffle our old 110 pop top had 3mm Al plate bent into a c-section. Back then, as the bloke's folding machine wasn't long enough to bend an entire side in one go, 2 bits were welded together. The bends, weld weren't perfectly aligned, and it had always bothered me (others never noticed) hence the box section this time. I used a flexible plastic cutting board to get the angle for the windscreen. Cut it to size with 45 degree angle on the rear corners. And sliced it lengthways at about 60mm high for the bit over the windscreen. This cut, is my new record "loudest job" of the project so far.

The top of the windscreen is actually curved, giving about a 2mm gap on either side. My friend structural sikaflex is going to fill this small gap.

Mackay Aluminium Industries (MAI) managed to bend a 60x12x 3mm gutter, into the shape of the curve over the rear door. Awesome job. Then I cut out the corresponding bit out of the rear box section. I also got them to bend up a 3mm plate for the windscreen panel. Made numerous templates for the cut out around the windscreen rubber, none of which worked properly, so ended up finding a bowl of the right diameter.

MAI also bent me a 30x45mm angle to use as the bed rail. I got carried away with my new found bending skills and bent the ends around, to try and minimise head knocks on the ends.

On Jaffle we didn't have a gutter immediately above the doors. This was another annoyance. We had reused the original roof (which had gutters) but due to the windscreen angle, the front gutters ended up further back. Thus when it rained, and a door was opened, it channelled this water directly into the foot wells.

So original plan was to use a galvanised gutter in the same fashion as LR. I even had some folded up. But thinking about it, it seemed pointless - too heavy, dissimilar metals and another point to leak. So I decided get some Al gutters folded at 20x12m, and get them welded on. Interestingly the original rear gutter on the county roof only stick out about 15mm, the sides stick out 20mm. I also folded the ends of the gutter around at the front, and finished them about 50mm behind the rear door with a bend. Photos show the front bend on 2mm thick Al, before I had some more bent out of 3mm to make them a bit stiffer, and then re did the bends.

As I have used a hollow box section I wont be able to access the inside to place nuts etc to bolt the B and C pillar mounts. So I put in a 1.2m length of 30x30x5mm stainless angle, which I can then drill and tap once the frame is welded. So at this stage I just put in a couple of bolts to hold the angle in place.

At 4 in the morning on the day it was due to be welded I decided to shorten this to 2 shorter lengths (250mm) per side, directly above the pillars. And promptly snapped my only sharp drill bit in the right size, which resulted in snapping my only M6 tap shortly after. Oh joy! The tap was broken in the stainless, which was then jammed in the box section. Goodness me... But I made it in the end, and got to Mackay Aluminium Industries by 7am.

Very impressive.

Absolutely impressive...

When we get around to making our pop-top conversion (ie. like your Jaffle), we'll be asking many questions of you...

After 12 hours of welding it then looked like this....

I thought it would only take around 3 hours of welding, as I had everything cut to size and bent ready to go. But there were 20 separate pieces to weld together, and one side was 8mm longer than the other. Then again, I thought I would have the whole station wagon/pop top conversion done in 3 weeks and it's taken much longer than that and I'm still going....

Mackay Aluminium Industries did a really good job, the welds are neat and it looks good.

Front corner welds

These pics and the commentary are fantastic.. much appreciated you posting them for our benefit.

Rear corners

Rear door opening