L300 Crystal Lite Project

Kellyn

Kellyn

Forum Administrator
Staff member
Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you. The bar ate me when I bought my last L300. It was a GEM for other reasons, but the giant fckn holes in the roof said otherwise. I have a pal who does body work so he offered to help tackle the "project". When I say project, I mean completely replace the roof. COMPLETELY. Here we go

A little back story. I picked this thing up sight unseen. Yes, I'm a crazy person. OK, so this L300 had nascar tape from the front of the roof to the back. Layers of it. And below that, some japenese tinfoil tape that was stickier than a warm jar of honey. It was batshit crazy. I spent more time peeling this stuff off than I did getting the van to the US. Well not quite but you get the point.

The goal was to get the roof back in to perfect shape so I could sell the van. Fortunately for me, a friend of mine who likes shiny things walked into my shop and immediately claimed it as his own. He didn't even mind the roof! I love it when a plan comes together. Moving on, here is the progress from start to the eventual finish.






Now, enter my friend Luke and his ability to save my ass.




Completely new sheet metal


 
That is insane! I can't imagine the tape helped all that much in fixing the problem...perhaps layers upon layers did.
 
Hey Kellyn just a quick question did you have those patches on the roof welded or are they sealed on I can't tell in the photos?
I'm only asking because a friend of mine is starting to restore his roof.
Thanks
 
luke said:
Hey Kellyn just a quick question did you have those patches on the roof welded or are they sealed on I can't tell in the photos?
I'm only asking because a friend of mine is starting to restore his roof.
Thanks
Click to expand...

We installed new metal and panel bonded it all in. Zero welding. Hope this helps.
 
This is fantastic! Thanks to Luke to pointing me to this post...

My roof looks pretty much exactly like that minus the plastic... I was expecting I would need to pay a welder to weld in fresh metal but your panel bonding approach is very interesting indeed...

It all looks really flush - great job! How did you do this? Are the new sections slightly oversized and then just "lap jointed" and sanded down? Or are they exact fits and then butt jointed some how? Any further detail would be greatly appreciated, seriously considering copying your approach.

Many thanks
Jeroen
 
sylquebec. said:
can you upload the picture again. they dont work anymore.
Click to expand...
Whaddya mean they don't work?! I see perfectly good pictures of kittens! I'm working on getting my old photo content from photobucket. They are shitbags.
 
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