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The wheelhouse roof had been madein 2007 and consisted of 3 longitudinal pieces, weighing nearly 100 Kg a panel. It was far too heavy for me and Lorna to lift off and then back on to pass under a low bridge or through a tunnel. It also took in water around its edge joints and rotted so badly that mushrooms grew from it and water dripped through into the wheelhouse interior. We started researching materials and designs to replace the roof with a new light weight, strong, insulating and waterproof roof. The research led us to order Vekaplan, cut to size and ready for us to assemble into 6 roof sections. First we had to get the old roof off, a joint effort of levers, grunts, ropes and wooden sliders.
That is one section of old roof off and you can see that the new roof will sit on the wood surround and the aluminium channel with internal lipping to seat it in place.
The new Vekaplan arrived 1 week late, with torn packaging and smaller bits strewn around the lorry. Some panels were damaged but luckily we had insurance on the delivery. The main roof sections were 24mm thick Vekaplan, 2.2m long and about 1m wide. The rest of the order was for smaller component pieces to make up the interior lipping.
The 6 roof sections were first laid on top, accurately lined up so that overhangs and edges were all correct and then clamped in place . Each of these weighed about 28Kg each and being only half the total length of the roof were much easier to handle.
Then we marked were the internal lip would need to be, luckily we did this in hot weather so that when the Vekaplan cools it should contract and still fit within the wheelhouse structure.
Then the smaller pieces could be cut to length and glued to the underside of each section. The Vekaplan could be cut in the same way as wood so was marked up and cut with a chop saw and table saw. We glued the pieces together using a quick acting pvc solvent glue.