In order to prepare my Syncros for longer rides, I decided to install a convertible roof – the Westfalia Mosaik retrofitting convertible roof. This posting shows how I prepared essential components that were missing (roof frame) in order to install the roof.

For the conversion with the Wesfalia Mosaik roof you just need to cut the small roof opening – in contrast to the big roof opening from the original Westfalia Joker / Clubjoker / California. After I had bought the Westfalia Mosaik roof I found out that essential parts were missing:

• the roof frame (fit by rivets)
• the bed structure

So I decided to do some reverse engineering and built the roof frame on my own.

Considerations

To get a perfectly fitting roof frame I came up with the idea to made it out of the roof of an rusty old Vanagon.

Here you can see the theoretical steps I considered in 3D (unfortunately the caption is just in german, but I think you can see anyway what’s going on)

Conversion

Different to my theoretical plan I made all the welding while the new roof frame was still in the Vanagon – after that I cuted the frame out of the original roof of the Vanagon.

The following pictures show the practical work:

And here you can see the final result after cutting out the roof frame:

 

Conclusion

Much work to do. You get a perfectly fitting roof frame, but the expenditure of time is quite high. Honestly spoken I don’t know if I would do I once again in that way.