L300 crystal lite roof rust

Have-dogs-needed-Van

Have-dogs-needed-Van

New Member
Started tackling the rust on my roof. Managed to pull the interoir, but now im starting to see how bad the issue is.

The front sunroof is a goner and the back has some bad rust too. I was expecting this getting into it. What i was predicting is all the areas i can't access from the top or bottom. At all the spots where these rubber stoppers were separating the roof from the structural peices underneath there are rust patches. They are mostly just surface rust, but they are all over the roof and very hard to access do to these structural pieces.

Im ready to cut out the front sunroof and just weld a sheet in its place and probably do the same in the back. My real problem is how to deal with everything inbetween.

Im thinking of possibly cutting the roof sheet metal all the way from back to front so i can clean the structural pieces underneath then just weld new sheet metal back in. I do not know much about welding so im not sure how resonable this is. I will be hiring some to so the welding.

Any suggestions?
 

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I haven’t finished pulling all the rear interior on mine. However, from the looks of my roof on the outside, I’ll be facing similar.
before cutting, I plan to use Eastwood Rust Remover or Convertor.
 
I've also seen where someone replaced the roof with one from a donor and used body panel adhesive rather than welding...
 
The crystal lite roof is lovely, but it's a rust trap: interior condensation gets into the structure and starts it rusting, and by the time the rust pops through on the outside it's usually *far* worse inside.

I advise anyone with a crystal-lite roof to remove the headlining and shades, and hose the interior of the roof down with a non-sealing rust converter, allow it to dry for a few days, then follow with rust preventing cavity wax. Everywhere. In all the seams and hollow places. That should kill any rust that's starting and prevent any new rust forming, at least for another 20 years.

If you have existing rust, fix that first as cavity wax will get into any repairs and stop the paint sticking.
 
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I see so this will handle most of the mid section of the roof where the rust is more superficial. I am assuming it is best to sand out all I can from the bottom still and let the rust converter do its work on the stuff I can't reach.

What's your recommended hose for this rust converter, just a spray simple spray bottle?

Thanks a lot for the input!
 
Yup, spray bottle is easiest, you really want to flood it in there. You're going to have to mask up the rest of the interior with heavy plastic sheets. Consider removing the seats and carpet too, you don't want rust converter or cavity wax getting on any fabrics.

You'll want to put a fan heater inside the van for a few days to really dry the rust converter out.

Probably best to do the rust converter first, let it dry, then do any rust repairs, and save the cavity wax until the very end: cavity wax might interfere with any filler or primer you use for rust repair, best if there's no cavity wax while you're using bondo (or welding, or priming, or whatever).
 
Growlerbearnz said:
The crystal lite roof is lovely, but it's a rust trap: interior condensation gets into the structure and starts it rusting, and by the time the rust pops through on the outside it's usually *far* worse inside.

I advise anyone with a crystal-lite roof to remove the headlining and shades, and hose the interior of the roof down with a non-sealing rust converter, allow it to dry for a few days, then follow with rust preventing cavity wax. Everywhere. In all the seams and hollow places. That should kill any rust that's starting and prevent any new rust forming, at least for another 20 years.

If you have existing rust, fix that first as cavity wax will get into any repairs and stop the paint sticking.
Click to expand...
FYI Evaporust Original is on sale for $13.58 a gallon on Amazon right now...
 
Already have all the seats except the driver out - one bolt just won't come out. Painters poly is already coving all the interior is covered in painters poly, might also remove the carpet, seems easy while the seats are out.

For the roof I was thinking of using a truck bed liner. My hope here is that even if I don't reach all the rust, the bed liner will hold its structure and won't leak as easy. Also would be nice to not worry about through stuff up on the roof and damaging the paint.

I had a chance to talk to a restoration place and he mentioned the same thing as Sk66 about adhesives vs welding. They mentioned 3M metal to metal glue and Urethane sealer. He really sold me on the option as I am not a welder this would save me some cash and i could do the entire job myself. Cool idea!
 
Update:

The Roof is pretty much done, it's just a matter of insulated the roof and putting the interior together.
I ended up using metal to metal epoxy to secure the new metal

My process for anyone else attempting this:
  1. Used a sanding disk to find out how much rust i was dealing with. In my case it made sense to fully remove the middle strip between the glass sections of the roof and the front sunroof.
  2. Before cutting these sections out i fab my new pieces of metal (18 gauge cold rolled steel) and tested fitted them screwing them down to the existing roof using self-tapping screws (about 4" spacing between screws). keeping the existing metal gave structure to the edges of the roof keeping the shape of the roof when fitting the new metal patches.
  3. Once happy with the fit, i removed the new metal patches and cut out all the existing rusty metal that my newly fab'd pieces would cover.
20201025_124358.jpg

20201025_162240.jpg
  1. At this point all the support structures was accessible from the top. I took this time to paint everything with rust converter and and let it sit overnight. The next day i lightly sanded all of the support structure and cleaned it with a bit of water, isopropyl, then epoxy primed all the rust converted area and all of the tops of the support structure.
  2. I then prepped everything for epoxing the new panels on. The new metal pieces i epoxy primed the side that would face into the vehicle so no bare metal would be on the inside. Keep in mind you need to leave a band of metal around the outside of the metal 1.5" so the epoxy has metal to adhere to. It is really critical to clean this metal well before the epoxy, i used the isopropyl here again to clean my epoxy surface. The existing metal that would be my epoxy surface on the roof was also sanded down to bare metal at this point and clean well.
  3. Epoxying the metal to the roof was a bit messy and required an extra set of hands. Once everything was ready to go i applied the metal to metal epoxy to all of my epoxy surfaces spreading it out with a bondo applicator, this is an important step, if any metal is not covered you you may have exposed metal on the inside of your vehicle will be hard to seal afterwards. Once the surfaces were covered i laid a beed of epoxy on the epoxy covered perimeter of the roof and screwed my new metal patches down. It helps to screw from one ended of the metal to the other so that the gaps between the patches and the roof are kept to a minimum.
20201026_110554.jpg


4.After letting the epoxy cure overnight the screws were removed and the roof was painted with epoxy primer. Fiberglass Bondo was used to fill all the caps and smooth out the edges of the roof. there were also a couple of small rust spots that were filled in at this point.
5. The roof was then painted and the results look pretty good!
20201025_194723.jpg
20201102_080301.jpg



I wish i had taken more picture of the process to better explain what i did, but keep in mind i am no professional and there may have been better ways to do this. I just kind of took everyones advice and mashed it together into my own solution. This was a bit of a challenge for someone is not much of a fabricator, this took me about 3 weekends in total with some help.
 
Using epoxy adhesive is a nice solution, avoids all those small fires from welding (or maybe that's just me ;-))
 
CasioTheDelica said:
Update:

The Roof is pretty much done, it's just a matter of insulated the roof and putting the interior together.
I ended up using metal to metal epoxy to secure the new metal

My process for anyone else attempting this:
  1. Used a sanding disk to find out how much rust i was dealing with. In my case it made sense to fully remove the middle strip between the glass sections of the roof and the front sunroof.
  2. Before cutting these sections out i fab my new pieces of metal (18 gauge cold rolled steel) and tested fitted them screwing them down to the existing roof using self-tapping screws (about 4" spacing between screws). keeping the existing metal gave structure to the edges of the roof keeping the shape of the roof when fitting the new metal patches.
  3. Once happy with the fit, i removed the new metal patches and cut out all the existing rusty metal that my newly fab'd pieces would cover.
View attachment 9453

View attachment 9454
  1. At this point all the support structures was accessible from the top. I took this time to paint everything with rust converter and and let it sit overnight. The next day i lightly sanded all of the support structure and cleaned it with a bit of water, isopropyl, then epoxy primed all the rust converted area and all of the tops of the support structure.
  2. I then prepped everything for epoxing the new panels on. The new metal pieces i epoxy primed the side that would face into the vehicle so no bare metal would be on the inside. Keep in mind you need to leave a band of metal around the outside of the metal 1.5" so the epoxy has metal to adhere to. It is really critical to clean this metal well before the epoxy, i used the isopropyl here again to clean my epoxy surface. The existing metal that would be my epoxy surface on the roof was also sanded down to bare metal at this point and clean well.
  3. Epoxying the metal to the roof was a bit messy and required an extra set of hands. Once everything was ready to go i applied the metal to metal epoxy to all of my epoxy surfaces spreading it out with a bondo applicator, this is an important step, if any metal is not covered you you may have exposed metal on the inside of your vehicle will be hard to seal afterwards. Once the surfaces were covered i laid a beed of epoxy on the epoxy covered perimeter of the roof and screwed my new metal patches down. It helps to screw from one ended of the metal to the other so that the gaps between the patches and the roof are kept to a minimum.
View attachment 9455


4.After letting the epoxy cure overnight the screws were removed and the roof was painted with epoxy primer. Fiberglass Bondo was used to fill all the caps and smooth out the edges of the roof. there were also a couple of small rust spots that were filled in at this point.
5. The roof was then painted and the results look pretty good!
View attachment 9456
View attachment 9457



I wish i had taken more picture of the process to better explain what i did, but keep in mind i am no professional and there may have been better ways to do this. I just kind of took everyones advice and mashed it together into my own solution. This was a bit of a challenge for someone is not much of a fabricator, this took me about 3 weekends in total with some help.
Click to expand...
WOW--great work! That look amazing and thanks for posting pics...I haven't purchased one yet and am preparing for the many projects...but I'm gutting regardless so this gives me insight and hope.
 
CasioTheDelica said:
Update:

The Roof is pretty much done, it's just a matter of insulated the roof and putting the interior together.
I ended up using metal to metal epoxy to secure the new metal

My process for anyone else attempting this:
  1. Used a sanding disk to find out how much rust i was dealing with. In my case it made sense to fully remove the middle strip between the glass sections of the roof and the front sunroof.
  2. Before cutting these sections out i fab my new pieces of metal (18 gauge cold rolled steel) and tested fitted them screwing them down to the existing roof using self-tapping screws (about 4" spacing between screws). keeping the existing metal gave structure to the edges of the roof keeping the shape of the roof when fitting the new metal patches.
  3. Once happy with the fit, i removed the new metal patches and cut out all the existing rusty metal that my newly fab'd pieces would cover.
View attachment 9453

View attachment 9454
  1. At this point all the support structures was accessible from the top. I took this time to paint everything with rust converter and and let it sit overnight. The next day i lightly sanded all of the support structure and cleaned it with a bit of water, isopropyl, then epoxy primed all the rust converted area and all of the tops of the support structure.
  2. I then prepped everything for epoxing the new panels on. The new metal pieces i epoxy primed the side that would face into the vehicle so no bare metal would be on the inside. Keep in mind you need to leave a band of metal around the outside of the metal 1.5" so the epoxy has metal to adhere to. It is really critical to clean this metal well before the epoxy, i used the isopropyl here again to clean my epoxy surface. The existing metal that would be my epoxy surface on the roof was also sanded down to bare metal at this point and clean well.
  3. Epoxying the metal to the roof was a bit messy and required an extra set of hands. Once everything was ready to go i applied the metal to metal epoxy to all of my epoxy surfaces spreading it out with a bondo applicator, this is an important step, if any metal is not covered you you may have exposed metal on the inside of your vehicle will be hard to seal afterwards. Once the surfaces were covered i laid a beed of epoxy on the epoxy covered perimeter of the roof and screwed my new metal patches down. It helps to screw from one ended of the metal to the other so that the gaps between the patches and the roof are kept to a minimum.
View attachment 9455


4.After letting the epoxy cure overnight the screws were removed and the roof was painted with epoxy primer. Fiberglass Bondo was used to fill all the caps and smooth out the edges of the roof. there were also a couple of small rust spots that were filled in at this point.
5. The roof was then painted and the results look pretty good!
View attachment 9456
View attachment 9457



I wish i had taken more picture of the process to better explain what i did, but keep in mind i am no professional and there may have been better ways to do this. I just kind of took everyones advice and mashed it together into my own solution. This was a bit of a challenge for someone is not much of a fabricator, this took me about 3 weekends in total with some help.
Click to expand...
Question: How wide and long were the pieces of metal you put in? just curious so I can figure cost of metal in! Thank you!
 
CasioTheDelica said:
Started tackling the rust on my roof. Managed to pull the interoir, but now im starting to see how bad the issue is.

The front sunroof is a goner and the back has some bad rust too. I was expecting this getting into it. What i was predicting is all the areas i can't access from the top or bottom. At all the spots where these rubber stoppers were separating the roof from the structural peices underneath there are rust patches. They are mostly just surface rust, but they are all over the roof and very hard to access do to these structural pieces.

Im ready to cut out the front sunroof and just weld a sheet in its place and probably do the same in the back. My real problem is how to deal with everything inbetween.

Im thinking of possibly cutting the roof sheet metal all the way from back to front so i can clean the structural pieces underneath then just weld new sheet metal back in. I do not know much about welding so im not sure how resonable this is. I will be hiring some to so the welding.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Wow that's a big job, think I would be tempted to put in a pop up roof if its totally gone, such a shame I love these.
 
I apologize if I missed it but did you have to do any resealing of the four crystal lite windows?
 
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