Raising a Crown Roof

[boogiethecat]

John asked me about this in a different thread, so I decided it would be appropriate to start a separate thread for all interested.


Hi John,
The roof raise wasn't too bad, the hardest part of it was figuring out where the cut line goes across the front, because Crown used three pieces of steel bent at all sorts of weird angles and they all come together right where the cut needs to be.  But once I grokked it, it wasn't bad at all.  I did the actual cut with a long sawzall blade... I'd do it again that way although for the rest of the body cutting I sure wish I'd had my plasma cutter back then!!!

Here's a drawing of how mine was put together at the front where the cut us the hairiest...  It's a side view as seen by standing on the driver's side, front of bus facing left.
Black is the roof, Green is the interior brow panel, orange is the piece between the windshield and the "mess" above, blue is the windshield (the black "H" is the windshield gasket), and the red lines are where I made my cut (s).

http://www.heartmagic.com/crownRoofCut.jpg


Here's a lot of photos of the actual raise...
http://www.heartmagic.com/zzRoofRaiser/
Basically once I got the sheetmetal separated, I cut all of the vertical posts except two in the front and two in the rear.

Then I used 8 C-clamps and clamped heavy wall 1x1 square steel tubing "sliders" into the two front-most posts (ones that i did cut) and two at the rear.  I welded the bottoms of the sliders in, as these would become real posts when done.  Once the C clamps were tight and securely holding the roof, I cut the final 4 posts, then with a modified bumper jack, raised it 1" at a time, rotating left to right, front to back... around and around an inch at a time until the whole thing was 1 foot up.  I'd loosen the C clamps at the corner I was raising, cause the roof to "slide" up an inch on the square steel tubing by operating the bumper jack, then clamp it tight again and move to another corner.   When it was all rasied to where i wanted it, I welded in
pieces of super heavy-wall 1x1 square steel tubing to fill in the 1' gaps once the thing was raised.

Once it was raised and it was time to start filling in the holes, the next trick was how to fill in the rear curved areas without making it look like crap.
It turned out super simple... here's the photos, they tell all..

http://www.heartmagic.com/busrear/

It takes some trick Mig welding on thin steel here and there, some good urethane caulking, and some craziness to do the raise well, but in the end I've been nothing but happy with how it all came out.  Of course the prize has been when I'm sitting at a truck stop and the truckers look long and hard at my bus, then walk up to me and say "I didn't know they made those things that tall". It's happened probably ten times now!
Hee hee, fooled them!

One really necessary thing is a set of Gulmite drivers to remove all those pesky screws.
I had to make the one on the right by taking some screws with good heads to an EDM shop and
creating a custom tool out of oil hardening tool steel.

http://www.heartmagic.com/00GulmiteDrivers.JPG

One last thing I'd DEFINITELY recommend, which I did not do, is REMOVE YOUR WINDSHIELDS FIRST!!!!!
I didn't and ended up having to replace both due to breaking one and getting weld splatter on the other.
Don't fall into that trap!! 

Have fun!!  Need any more ideas, write me anytime!!

Gary

[crown]

thanks gene do you have any pic.s of finished rear of bus  my crown has the curved windshilds i was thinking of cuting below the
windshild saw this done on a mci any thoughts  john

[boogiethecat]

Finished rear:

This is the first photo in the list of the link I provided earlier..

http://www.heartmagic.com/busrear/DSC00007.JPG

[crown]

thanks gary did you raise the floor to cover wheelwells what did you do on inside any pic.s of inside
not to many crown buss out there to get iders from most folk like the mci or eagles you can e mail
me off line if you want castle1849@yahoo.es john

[boogiethecat]

Left the floor alone.  Covered the front wheelwells with couches, and the rear ones are under the shower and a clothes cabinet.
I have a lot of inside pics, I'll find em and email them to you.
Cheers
G

[crown]

thanks for all your help will be looking forword to seeing the pictures john

[HB of CJ]

Hello boogiethecat.  This is HB of CJ.  Remember me?  Years ago you sold me three (3) spare Crown narrow-width side window assemblies.

Again, thanks for all your help.  And....are you still considering bottling up all your Bus Conversion energy and $selling$ it?  He he he. 

[crown]

hi boggiethe cat what happend to the pictures you where going to send me thanks john

[boogiethecat]

I got to doing some work inside and its a gigantic mess. No good for photos for a few days....sorry

Here's one of the front section anyway.

http://www.heartmagic.com/000BusInteriorFront.JPG

[crown]

thanks boggie when you get time no rush thanks