1979 Millard Series 80 Reno

[Deleted]

Roof continued, added a support beam. Which is just some aluminium flat.



We used some zinc corrugated sheeting.
If I had to do it again I would use something a little bit flatter but it does what it was intended.



Look at it as a whole

[Deleted]

So just run some insulation sheeting inside, made up the pvc skirting. Straight forward plumbers weld to connect. And some cloth tape over the join. Then stapled to the wooden sub frame



Not else left to do except go over the waterproofing on the van and paint.

Might paint the chassis as well depending on the state of the paint

[pisces51]

G,day broodsoldier, you are certainly doing some interesting work there. If you didn,t know already, the 900mm canopy lifters can support a maximum weight of 35kgs each when new, and less if they are old and the springs have stretched. I don,t know exactly what the 700 size will support, but probably not more than 30kgs each. Once you,ve finished building the roof, it,s worthwhile putting it on a set of bathroom scales on its edge, and checking the weight. When I refurbished the poptop roof on the Millard project I did, the finished roof weighed 60kgs, so it was well below the total capacity of the four new 900mm lifters at 140kgs. Easy to pop these roofs up, but hard to get them back down if you are a lightweight like me. Often ended up swinging like a monkey on the two inside roof handles to get enough weight to pull it down.

Cheers, Al.

[Deleted]

Good morning Pisces. Admittedly I may have overlooked this but the roof being majority alloy and sheeting is relitively light. I myself can lift it solo so it must not be much higher then 40kg. Being a smaller pop top roof. 2.5m by 2m. An issue of bring it down I guess I'll have to see once it's up.

Thanks for the tips Al,

[tasmillard]

great to see another one saved. Good work you are doing, and damn quick too. All the best.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the kind words Tas, I think after all is done I'll use it for a couple trips and sell it and buy another. The projects are a lot of fun and it's good to keep busy.

The roof Is on now, had some issues with The pvc getting caught and the roof has too come down in one go. It's on and doesn't look too bad. I think if I had to do it again I would avoid something needing such a drastic roof poptop rebuild.

[pisces51]

G'day broodsoldier, yeah it's not as simple as just fitting a new piece of vinyl skirt to the poptop roof. There has to be some means of deflecting the vinyl inwards as the roof is pulled down. Elastic straps were used in my Millard project.
Cheers, Al.

[Deleted]

I'm a little confused on how to achieve this, got any photos Al? I've also seen poptop tensioners how do they work/imstalled

[pisces51]

ditzygypsy.proboards.com/thread/119/1977-millard-poptop-mm1399-14ft?page=13

Broodsoldier, have a look at the photos down page 13 of my Millard poptop thread.

[Deleted]

Ahh so your Millard1399, didn't realise I had been talking to a legend all this time. I see how it works now, feel kind of stupid for not clicking on earlier. Thanks for that Al.

[Mustang]

WOW what a job, amazing Al.

[Deleted]

Small odds and ends at this point. Tested the vans fridge on gas , was a little hard to light but works well. The caravans half way through waterproofng. The first cannister of caulking rubber blew up so I hand applied most of it. Maybe had a little too much time with the heat gun. The idea I used was I removed the loose remainders of the old seal and put a small amount of rubber between the cladding which had come apart at the join. I then applied an amount on top /small amount. Enough to spread out the sides when compressed by the joins. Once the joins were done I used the excess to create a clean seal with the cladding. If more was required I applied more.

[Deleted]

So I've hit a dillemma, how to latch this roof down. As the obvious spots where you would install the latchs seem to be just cladding. I believe this van used to be latched from the inside maybe hugdheni could confirm this? In any case this can't be done with the current design

[Deleted]

Hi broodsoldier,
From memory those roof's were locked from the inside with rubber bonnet locks.
The ones they use on rally cars.
Hope this helps
Cheers
hughdeani

[Deleted]

Well I've turned into a ghost, after uneventful few months I decided to start the painful process of sanding and cleaning my pride and joy. We've decided to go a gloss white over the original cream. Going to go with gloss blue for the stripes.

[Mustang]

Interesting wheels?
Are they the ones with solid tires, to lower the van height for storage?

[Deleted]

Yeah stow away wheels. Despite how small she was, she was quite tall. Was lucky to get the pair for 150 as I've seen them go for 300 2nd hand

[Deleted]

So I mounted a tv today, an old dock Smith 20 " with inbuilt DVD player. Mounted it to an aluminium frame. Use bugle self drillers, any newbies out there it's important to get it on a frame as the ply has 0 structural strength.




taped up the van, applied a sail blue gloss finish to the van. Here's some before and after shots.

Before


After





I also installed a new lock, that I was able to buy from eBay. There pretty helpful they come in sections or as a whole pack . So only need to buy what you need too to make it work. Happily have a lockable van now.



Getting there slowly.