The CF Bedford Rebuild Begins

Part 10: The rebuild starts - the roof

The roofs edge (once gutters removed) was quite rusty, because the roof is one big panel, sandblasting it was not an option, so only the edges were done, the rest done by hand.

The roof itself is not very strong, the Bedford has two inner braces which don't do much to stop that hollow sound, and so a third was added to try give it more structure.

On the left is a standard CF Bedford roof, notice the three straight channels. Now on the right is what I did to it so the sunroof had a flat bit of roof. Notice the roof is all rounded, no rear spoiler or dropped roof as yet. I can't trick you, you know it's coming.

Because there are no windows in the back a sunroof or something was needed (will have rear fan unit as well - maybe), the roof also has three flutes, channels or whatever you want to call them, running the length of the roof. Average Joe would just cut a hole and full up the gaps with silicone. I'm not average Joe ;), because of the roof chop, and keeping the original pillar angles I have to extend the length of the roof (60mm) anyway, so decided to use a pop up sunroof in the rear, but changing the design of the flutes/channels so as to redirect any water to the rear of the van instead of blocking it against the sunroof.

I have no idea if the actual design will work or not, as long as it doesn't whistle when I drive down the road lol. The rear channels are about rear door width so will hopefully disperse a bit of water away from the door itself.

As the roof was like the rest of the van - rusty, I had to make a bottom edge in some sections while patching others. The bottom edge was handy as it also gives it strength as well as being a mounting point to weld to.

Tech Tip

I'm often asked about removing the gutters. It's not a nice job as they have a glue or something to help bond the panels as well as the spot welds. The gutter section is actually three pieces, the side panel, the gutter which is also the inner channel, and the roof itself. Ideally what you want to do is cut the gutter off, lift the roof a bit so you can weld the inner to the lower, clean up then weld the roof to the newly weld side/inner section. Trying to weld all 3 at one time will lead to disaster down the track.
I should also mention the roof and the side panel don't align, the roof will need to be pulled out to meet the side which causes a gap to big to weld.

I was going to add another sunroof in the front, was even thinking about an electric sunroof but have decided against it. The van will have air conditioning and the windows go up and down so hopefully wont need the front sunroof - can always add it later.
I wanted a rear spoiler but didn't want a big one.So I went for a rear spoiler that is semi embedded into the rear of the roof, biggest problem is the internal rear hinges so will have to think about it. Oh and finally got a reversing camera so need to mount that somewhere too (is 25mm lens). The plan is to sink the rear spoiler into the roof section and have three supports, the outer ones being where the rear gull wing door is and the middle to set the reversing camera into, with brake light above it.

The main reason for the roof spoiler is for the reversing camera. Yeah I know I could of fitted it by the number plate or somewhere but wheres the fun in that.

What I ended up doing was sinking the rear roof into the van. I cut along the top rear side, between the outer channel and the edge of the roof. Because of the rear hinge I was limited to how far I could go but the thought of a roof spoiler has popping up in my mind. Long story short I made a removable roof spoiler to hold the hi stop light and the middle support to house the reversing camera, This camera will actually be my rear vision mirror.

There is a reason why I made the rear of the roof step down more than the rest of the roof, but I'm danged if I can remember the reason now. If I ever remember hopefully I'll add it here.