Hello EV folks,
I am about to embark on a poptop repair/restoration project and thought I'd seek out any experience any of you
may have doing something similar. As most of us know the Winnebego ABS plastic has a limited life span, especially
if it gets exposed to lots of UV's and is not stored under cover.
Mine in a 2002, about 2 years ago a 4 inch crack appeared on the side wall of the poptop midway.
I was able to use some plastic weld to arrest the crack and keep it from getting worse.
I'll include some pics to give a better depiction.
The crack repair was not pretty, but it seems to be holding up.
Unfortunately, more cracks have now appeared in all four corners.
They are very small at this point and I have used some plastic weld to stop them for now.
This got me thinking that it could be beneficial for the life span of the poptop if I did a refinish job
using a marine top coat. I'd like to get 5 more years out of the EVC and the poptop appears to be the weak link.?
Unfortunately, I don't have a garage to store it in, so UV's are taking a toll as each year goes by.
Even though I live in Oregon UV's still are causing annual deterioration.
My hope is that sanding the top, applying a primer, then painting on the top coat will add some
strength to the shell and stall the deterioration.
There is a fairly new 1 part top coat product made by Interlux called Toplac Plus.
They claim that applying it with a brush or roller will be OK, as it has good flow out and will
give a smooth finish. Nice thing is that this product has 6 off white colors and one looks to be a good math.
It will take some flattening agent to dull down the high gloss finish.
This will be a fair amount of work and want to make sure it will be worth the effort.

Two things that occur to me:
1. Is that the poptop seal might be a real challenge to reinstall if the coating layers add
much thickness to the poptop shell. I had a pretty hard time installing a new seal several years ago, when a little residual adhesive
was stuck on the edge of the poptop.
2. I'd like to sand down the plastic welds, for a nice look, but fear it will weaken the weld strength.
?? The toothpaste look ain't so pretty.

So, if you have done this job or something similar I'd appreciate hearing of your experiences.
It seems like this is a universal issue for all EVC poptop owners.
How do we get more life out of these ABS poptops?
They are too expensive to replace!
So do they just become parts vehicles when the poptop finally
gives out?

Anyway, here are some pics.
Thanks for any experience/advice that you can share with me.

Andrew
2002 EVC, 185K mi.

I love this idea and concept, but sadly, I think it will mostly reside in the fantasy/dream world….

To take two “species” with very little shared DNA in common (think cheetah and house cat :) and successfully mate them is almost as difficult as it is to re-create a new species altogether from scratch. Especially one of which is at the end of its lifetime in terms of dealer support w more and more parts becoming NLA, etc.

?I’m a total electric car convert and a very happy Tesla Y owner/driver (my one gripe is w the CEO who I think should be strapped to the nose cone of a space X rocket and launched into outer orbit ;). I wish my van had that sort of power plant, low center of gravity and torque!

I say this as someone who has converted their van quite extensively from what it came off the boat as (2000 EVW 2.6l VR6 2wd auto). ?The big difference in doing any kind of engine/drivetrain conversion with donor parts that share DNA is several orders of magnitude easier—on a different planet really yet it’s still no small task both in terms of time (years), money (tens of thousands of dollars) and mechanical reserves to pull it off. It’s a stretch, but this is still within reach here on Earth 1.

--
Justin
2000 EVW 1.9TDI Syncro 5-spd
501k mi :-)

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