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This week brings an end to a daunting task that was first proposed by our customer last year at a show. "If I buy a lwb caravelle, can you fit a roof to it?".....probably!I: he says, never expecting it to go any further. A few months later and the customer (Andy) is negotiating a deal on a new lwb caravelle.....with sunroof
. in black.
"can you fit an SCA lwb 192 delux roof, and keep the functionality of the air con and heating in the roof, plus the alarm sensors and some lights, and blend it in with the original roof panels?"......Yes, I am sure its possible!
Andy sends some photos of a few examples he has found on the net and we get the roof ordered.
After a delayed start, we took delivery of the van 3 weeks ago.
I knew this was going to be a taxing build due to the level of strip out and refit, plus trying to maintain an oem look. Usually we rip everything out and build it all as we want....here we would be trying to make it look and fit like it did originally...but fitting around an sca frame.
First job as always....thorough wash.
Next job, strip out the interior.
Next, protect the floor and double mask the sides of the van to minimize the chance of any swarf damage.
Next, cut the roof.
Fit strengthening frame and sca pod. Being a twin slider and sunroof model this was a bit more fun than usual. A couple of the grab handle brackets were in the way of the SCA under brackets. If were were not refitting the headlining it would not be a problem, but these are the only thing holding up the heaadliner. They had to be cut off and reshaped to fit back over the brackets.
Luckily for us, Andy had not only purchased a new headlining (without a sunroof), but had also acquired an old one that we could do a test fit with.
Having filled the sunroof hole, fixed the frame and pod in place we then had to trim the roof lining to fit. We used a lipped rubber trim to hold the headlining to the fibreglass pod. Over the rear windows the headliner did want to dip a little due to the pull on the upper edge. A block of wood and some sikaflex and an overnight clamp sorted this out.
Along each flank of headliner we fitted 4 down lights. Front 2, rear 2 switched left and right. The roof area is lit with 2 long stalk lights and a further 2 short stalk lights are fitted in the rear for reading.
The front console was replaced with the donor one (without sunroof control) and any (quite a few) unused parts of the wiring loom were insulated and taped out of the way.
The rear wiring loom was extended to allow the central light / heater control unit to be relocated at the rear end of the van in a custom built housing.
We upgraded the rear speakers to pioneer components, but having stripped the door card we decided that the front speakers on the caravelle seemed a lot better than standard van speakers so just sound deadened the doors to improve the sound a little.
A reimo multi rail was fitted to both sides, and to top off our work, we added an omnistore 5300 3m awning to the drivers side allowing the use of a driveaway awning on the passenger side.
To be honest, this was quite a daunting project on a very expensive base vehicle. Andy had done loads of research on parts and supplied more information than I could have found myself. He also fitted his eberspacher ducting the air through the dirvers B pillar using a factory B pillar vent and installed a leisure battery and hook up prior to us working on the vehicle.
I dont suppose its a conversion we would be asked to do on a regular basis, but at least we know how much work is involved...loads.
. in black."can you fit an SCA lwb 192 delux roof, and keep the functionality of the air con and heating in the roof, plus the alarm sensors and some lights, and blend it in with the original roof panels?"
......Yes, I am sure its possible!Andy sends some photos of a few examples he has found on the net and we get the roof ordered.
After a delayed start, we took delivery of the van 3 weeks ago.
I knew this was going to be a taxing build due to the level of strip out and refit, plus trying to maintain an oem look. Usually we rip everything out and build it all as we want....here we would be trying to make it look and fit like it did originally...but fitting around an sca frame.
First job as always....thorough wash.
Next job, strip out the interior.
Next, protect the floor and double mask the sides of the van to minimize the chance of any swarf damage.
Next, cut the roof.
Fit strengthening frame and sca pod. Being a twin slider and sunroof model this was a bit more fun than usual
. A couple of the grab handle brackets were in the way of the SCA under brackets. If were were not refitting the headlining it would not be a problem, but these are the only thing holding up the heaadliner. They had to be cut off and reshaped to fit back over the brackets.Luckily for us, Andy had not only purchased a new headlining (without a sunroof), but had also acquired an old one that we could do a test fit with.
Having filled the sunroof hole, fixed the frame and pod in place we then had to trim the roof lining to fit. We used a lipped rubber trim to hold the headlining to the fibreglass pod. Over the rear windows the headliner did want to dip a little due to the pull on the upper edge. A block of wood and some sikaflex and an overnight clamp sorted this out.
Along each flank of headliner we fitted 4 down lights. Front 2, rear 2 switched left and right. The roof area is lit with 2 long stalk lights and a further 2 short stalk lights are fitted in the rear for reading.
The front console was replaced with the donor one (without sunroof control) and any (quite a few) unused parts of the wiring loom were insulated and taped out of the way.
The rear wiring loom was extended to allow the central light / heater control unit to be relocated at the rear end of the van in a custom built housing.
We upgraded the rear speakers to pioneer components, but having stripped the door card we decided that the front speakers on the caravelle seemed a lot better than standard van speakers so just sound deadened the doors to improve the sound a little.
A reimo multi rail was fitted to both sides, and to top off our work, we added an omnistore 5300 3m awning to the drivers side allowing the use of a driveaway awning on the passenger side.
To be honest, this was quite a daunting project on a very expensive base vehicle. Andy had done loads of research on parts and supplied more information than I could have found myself. He also fitted his eberspacher ducting the air through the dirvers B pillar using a factory B pillar vent and installed a leisure battery and hook up prior to us working on the vehicle.
I dont suppose its a conversion we would be asked to do on a regular basis, but at least we know how much work is involved...loads
.
