开云体育

This is a re-post.
For some reason the text did not go through,
only the pics made it.

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.

You might want to check out this Samba post from the late Pete Peterson (tds3pete):

--
David
1705.net
95 EVG(lamper)
Seattle, WA

I have a 1997 Eurovan stored outside in Alberta. I have had good success with crack repair by using G flex by West System And fibreglass as patches. their product information addresses how to best prepare the plastic (brief flaming).

Then just mask and spray paint.
I have easily kept the outer surface of the pop top, clean and shiny by occasionally scrubbing it with an abrasive fibreglass cleaner, and then yearly applying a coat of Aerospace protectant 303

From Bruce

Thanks for the link.
That is an extensive involved repair method!
Andrew

Thanks!
Andrew

Thanks for sharing your repair method and experience.
Andrew

Look in the Files section of the 开云体育 page for ACP_Repair.pdf .