roof skin

[Dean]

i am to replace the roof skin my mk1, i have sourced a good straight soild roof. i have already braced up my roof to keep it all sqaure. i am thinking of cut my roof off in the corner off the gutter.as low as possible. ,then cut the up stand of the lip gutter off the other roof then lay in in my gutter,

right

1 is this the best way to do it , of is there a better way.
2 is it best to bond it on with something like tiger seal.
3 or spot weld it, its the corners that will be a pain,
4 should i drill out the spot welds and remove the remainer in the gutter, or there is going to be 3-4 layers of metal

thanks for any help

[Minisprint!]

I've got a gen rover roof skin for sale 80 if you want it! Then drill off spot weld and beg borrow or hire a spot welder and do a proper job!

[mk1rally]

The last time I replaced a roof skin, we cut the old skin out bar around 15 mm of it all around the roof. It was solid in the corners, the damage was in the middle. We then trimmed the upstand off the new panel, cleaned up all the edges and bonding surfaces, bonded it with Tigerseal, made lots of clamps from U clamps and small thin strips of wood that slid into the gutter. Get them ready first!!

It may not be approved of on here if your going down the concourse route (though once we had applied a very thin skin of seam sealer with wooden former we made to to the outer seam, you couldn't tell). You could of course see the repair on the inside with the roof liner out. It never leaked, never moved and was a straight at they come.

If you go down this route, I think there is some stuff you can get from the states now that is even better, it needs the surfaces to be primed also using there stuff, but it's very good. Though not cheap (£75-£80 rings a bell)

If you have damaged corners, then the above would only really be any good once they were made good.

[Dean]

I have a spot welder so that's not a problem but it's not the most neatest spot welder. It's an Old beast but works well if it some where that's not seen. I have hear of tiger sealing it on. But this car s going to be good may not be concours but close. But may try leaving a 15mm up stand and then try the roof over

I have a good roof. I cut it with 6" of the pillars so I can trim it back to were I want.

Thanks for your help. I doing it next week.

[Matty]

To be honest you need to spot weld it on, there is alot of strength in the roof.

Mine was cut out leaving a 20mm lip around the edge. Once to majority of the roof skin is removed, flatten the remaining lip to gain better access to the gutter area. You can then use a 4mm grinding disc vertically along the welded lip. Once you run the grinder along the weld you should be able to peel to remaining roof section away, leaving you with a 3-4mm off cut that should easily peel awat too. The corners are more difficult, and just requires alot time with a die grinder and alot of swearing!

I didn't brace mine, because to top skin was bonded onto the old skin, and it had no strength in it anyway. I found with it unbraced it also helped to manouver the new skin in place, they are quite a snug fit, and only really fit in it in one place.

This is what mine was like.





Then after It was cleaned up.

[mk1]

Minisprint! where are you, I may be interested in your roof.

My vote would be for bonding not welding, leave 40 or 50mm all round & bond with Tiger seal. This is well proven in racers & is at least as strong as (possibly stronger than) welding

[davidnutland]

If you are spot welding you need to pull the drainage lip away from the roof to minimise the risk of arking across and burning the lip away, if I were to fit another roof I would probably bond it on!

good luck david

[nick@dunsdale]

never did a roof skin on a mini

the leave a few mills of old skin and bond sounds like it would work, though for piece of mind i would be putting at the very least a plug weld in each corner, you can get bonding sealer that you can weld through.

[Dean]

i was thinking of bonding it on, but i do like to do things properly and go the whole hog, but i know my spot welder will damage the underside of the gutter which will need sorting before paint, which means more work when i dont need to, and leaving that 15mm lip will stop any water washing in and plus the tiger seal will seal it even more and will be clean.

think i have made up my mind.

thanks for all your help. i would love to go the whole hog and cut it off and get rid of the old roof lip,