MC7 Roof Raise

[DuaneMC7]

 Hi All

I need some words of encouragement from any one that has raised the roof on your MC7.  Since the walls taper inward starting at the bottom of the window line I am at a loss on where to start.

Thanks for any help, Duane

[Stan]

The taper in the walls has nothing to do with raising the roof. You are going to be cutting the existing posts (window frames) and replace them with longer posts. I had all my new posts made up the same lenth ready to weld in in the proper location for new windows.

The section between the front and rear cap is easy to raise. The problem areas are the structural framing iunder the caps. That framing holds up the front and rear of the bus. You have to do some serious engineering to replace that. When I did my front, I built a truss the height of the raise out of  1 1/2" x 1 1/2" X 1/4" wall that was cantilevered over the front bulkhead post (door post) and anchored to the next post back. The front end of the truss came to just above the windshield post and then all the additional roof framing was welded to the truss and to the raised roof framing.

At the back I left the original framing in and just tied it to the raised roof and put the rear cap on as cosmetic. I just welded in material to support cap after it was in place. I could have done the truss system at the back as well but it is a lot work when you consider that it has to hold up the rear of the engine.

[jjrbus]

 Fred does not show a roof raise on this site, but there is a lot of useful info.
      http://users.cwnet.com/thall/fredhobe.htm

[Jeremy]

I don't know how relevant this will be to an MC7, but I will just mention the idea as one approach you could consider; the sides on my bus are shaped in a continuous curve from top to bottom, so raising the roof in the conventional manner (cutting the window uprights and inserting a length of tube) would make the sides of the coach a very funny shape. Also, the existing side panelling is perfect, and I'm planning on keeping most of the windows as well, so I really don't want to touch the sides at all - instead I am going to raise the central portion of the roof by cutting the cross-beams (again curved), and simply moving them verticaly upwards by welding in short (but substantial) lengths of straight tube.

I stress that I have not started this job yet, so this idea is only 'theoritical' at the moment, but having planned it out I am confident it will be fairly straightforward, with no significant loss of strength to the roof beams. I will be cutting the roof beams and roof panel about 4" in from the side walls on both sides, with a strip of folded or rolled aluminium, or even moulded glassfibre, covering the step on the outside between the new roof and old - I am only doing a 6" raise, so when the job is finished I will just end up with a more 'radiused' edge between the roof and side - if your raise is much bigger then covering the step may be aethestically more of an issue. I am also thinking about using the 'step' on one side to install a full-length awning, in such a way that the awning housing will be completely flush and appear 'built-in' to the side of the bus.

At the rear end of my coach I am very fortunate in that there is a 'double' roof beam right at the back (ie. two roof beams side-by-side). I shall 'raise' the forward one of these two beams and leave the rear one as it is, which will allow an easy way to terminate the rear end of the raised roof. At the front end I may end up installing a second beam alongside one of the existing ones, so I can do the same thing there. I plan to put the front 'roofbump' more-or-less above the driver's seat, and make up a 'streamlined' glassfibre cap of my own design to cover the area between the windscreen and the 'bump'. I think when it is done the whole job will look 'OEM', and only by comparing two Plaxton's side by side would you realise the roof on mine had been raised.

The only disadvantage to this method that I can see is that the coach's side windows aren't raised along with the roof, so the view out for a 6'+ person walking about inside the coach may not be as good as it would be were the roof and windows raised together. The advantage is that there seems to be much less work involved - if you put the 'raise' in the sidewall you then have to do (what seems to be) a huge amount of work re-panelling the sides of the bus, re-installing windows, insulating and painting etc. In some cases I have seem that people have even continued the 'raise' around the front of the vehicle, so have had to lift the whole cockpit area with all that involves - seems like makework to me.

I hope my explaination of my approach makes some sense. Incidentally, I remembered that this is a photo of my own bus on the 'net, so I don't need to post photos of other ones to illustrate what mine looks like:



Jeremy

[DuaneMC7]

Thanks all,

I think I have a good plan now.