It takes about two minutes to take the roof off a car.
Tools to cut roof off a van.
Here s how to properly line up and cut your hole to accommodate your fiberglass raised roof v.
For our van we ve ordered a roof rack with a vent hole cutout included.
Capable of 18 gauge capacity in galvanized sheet metal.
Slowly and carefully cutting through the roof.
When an occupant is trapped the tool is used to pry or cut the car to remove the occupant.
The seats are in front of the first brace so you can t really stand up there anyway.
Because of this we had to be a bit more careful about where we installed the fan.
I cut it using a combination of electric sheet metal shears and a cut off wheel.
Be very careful with the edges of the original roof.
Cordless jigsaw from harbor freight 30 dollars with battery just don t leave charging more than 3 hours it doesn t have a smart charger.
Malco s popular sheet metal tool quickly attaches to the chuck of a minimum 12 volt cordless or an a c electric drill.
Turboshear heavy duty sheet metal cutting attachment.
The top is cut behind the 1st brace and about 4 above the gutter per instructions received from the van top vendor.
Mike brick coined the phrase jaws of life after he observed people saying that their new device snatched people from the jaws of death then used as a registered brand name for hurst products.
This is a really good idea.
Part of the original van roof can be left intact to help support cabinetry and other structures that will be attached to the high top.
In general you can use the roof vent adapter to get the fan centered see below and choose whichever long dimension you would like making sure to miss all the cross beam supports.
Here is a link to that product.
Drilling the holes that will be used to start the cut with the jigsaw.
Used it for cutting roof vents holes on the side of my van and also to cut wood panels for inside my van.
I chose to leave about 18 of the original roof at the rear because i plan to use that space for storage.
It s a good investment.
Roof vent adapter clean the metal and apply sealant.
Testing out the new hole in the roof.
Raised roof van conversion starts by making a hole in the roof.
Your sealant needs a clean surface to adhere to so make sure the metal that you just cut is clean and free of dust.
They make an adapter for the sprinter roofs so you don t have to do any fancy cutting to avoid the roof ribs.