my new vw bus canopy . . .
here's what i did to install it....
With my old canopy starting to discintegrate and reading up on how to replace it -- i ordered my canopy from gowesty.com. they were super helpful too when i called a number of times to get pointers on various tasks. i was totally looking for an orange canopy -- given with the volume of orange buses, i'm surprised they only had white, tan, and yellow? how many yellow campers are out there?
without havnig good photos online, i decided to order a sample patch of the yellow, and see the color in person. while the orange canopy (made from sunbrella fabric) sold by plfvw.com, would have made the best match, it cost another $100. i like to use the canopy, but really only get a few opportunities a year.
i decided the yellow would compliment my bus, and chose to take the cost savings here. the two-tone aestetic is nice too -- and i like the large window layout as well. the black screen tone is more pronounced, but works ~ it took some 'adjusting' to, but i think it looks great now. my last canopy was orange, with 3 windows and white screen.
Start by removing the metal brackets that keeps the canopy in place on the car. Feel free to punch holes in the fabric to get at hard to reach screws. You can then slide the canopy away from the frame.
There's some kind of shag thread there, I think to guide water down the channel?? Looks moldy and needs attention, but I'm not focused dealing with it now, need to get the canopy in place for my upcoming trip to the playa. here's a view of the tack strip too.
Remove the bolts keeping the raising hoist in place.
I used bungee cords to keep the hoist down, for safety.
Once the rear pivot is off you can now remove the whole top.
Maybe worth taking a minute, to clean out some of the dirt.
with the top completely off you can easily remove the old canvas, and the tack strip.
Using wood for leverage against a screwdriver, helps to press tacks out and makes short of this task.
I screwed up getting the center point lined up on the canopy. The proper method is to fold the canopy in half, and mark it with a pen. Various points in the frame on the car, server as guidelines for the center point on each side. Double check with measurements and mark them with a pen. when installing, always start at the center, and work your way towards the corners.
At this point I stopped meticulously reading directions and started listening to my drunk friends. Notice that we have the canopy tacked in, on the wrong side.
Relax and have a home brew.
Since the alignment was off originally, we spent a lot of time trying to tack in the canopy to the top, felt like we had to stretch the ends. We stopped for dinner, bbq and beer. It got dark. We didn't finish. I also realized around this time, it was tacked in on the wrong side. We had to adjourn for the day.
mmm bbq!
While I didn't want to drive my car without the top, I wound up with little choice. Fortunately the weather was good -- this was actually nice (like a very large sunroof). I recommend starting the replacement when weather is suitable and be prepared to not finish in a single day. Felt like my van was a little naked ~ like I was driving without a shirt on. I'm sure some people thought, "well there's a sight ya don't see every day".
With the canopy in, and properly centered it was less work to get it tacked back in.
However, I did not follow the advice -or notice- that other pages recommend a larger tack size -- I used the same size tacks. I was just trying to match the original. The new canvas has a thicker hem at the end. The canopy was not holding under stress, especially at the corners. I did not want to pull the canopy out and re-tack yet again, so we improvised and used a lot of nails to anchor down the tack strip. This seemed to work. Hopefully it will hold just fine, and I won't have to deal with this for another 25 years.
clamps help make the canopy managable.
You can use a 2x4 to hold up the top while you get things in place.
My rear pivots which props up the back had missing bolts -- I wasn't getting all the clearance inside I could get. So I replaced those bolt -- pretty tricky to get in place, takes two people and some leverage. One cheaper zinc bolt snapped from the force that night. Get high grade steel. Nervous this will happen when I'm sleep we fashioned up some wood to wedge in place for support and act as a safety. Later on I realized some stylish funky pieces, that fit perfectly along the sides.
Get the hoist mounting bolts back in place was tricky. Having two people for this job helped a lot. You do have to "drill" through the canopy fabric.
Getting the screws back in place was just a matter of time. One screw was totally stripped, and broken off. We couldn't drill it out and wound up drilling new holes. Takes a little effort here since the car is made of sheet metal, but with the right tools you can do this. A new metal screw with a larger diameter than the hole, makes its own channel into the car. all of these little problems add up, and this is why it takes so long to replace the top.
Finally getting the bottom part of the canvas in place. again, always start from the middle at work towards the corners. working around the ends is difficult. You should only have to cut the canopy hem-wire once to make it fit in each corner. However if it's not lined up, you may end up with too much material and have a difficult time making the corner.
After some time we got all the corners in place with minimal tweaking.
End result. Works great, looks good and holds up to the desert winds of the playa.
