vauxhallviva.com

What are the thoughts of the collective on here? My Magnum has a vinyl roof. I hope to strip the car soon for a full resto and eventually a respray (a reasonable amount of welding is needed first - sills, inner wings, new wings, rear arches, the chassis leg under the driver and a few patches around the seat box in the rear arches are currently on the list).

I want to keep the vinyl roof which is in great condition - do I just mask it up and protect it with sheets/card/newspaper attached to it?

I would suggest you mask it off as you describe. Be careful if you wish to remove the chrome trims at the rear as they can bend easily.

The metal roof below the vinyl was probably not fully painted if the roof was factory fitted. This means that your roof could be hiding lots of rust. Carefully check along the vinyl seams and down the rear pillars, especially along the gutters, for any bubbling of crunchieness below the vinyl.

1972nail wrote:I would suggest you mask it off as you describe. Be careful if you wish to remove the chrome trims at the rear as they can bend easily.

The metal roof below the vinyl was probably not fully painted if the roof was factory fitted. This means that your roof could be hiding lots of rust. Carefully check along the vinyl seams and down the rear pillars, especially along the gutters, for any bubbling of crunchieness below the vinyl.

Oh gosh! I assumed it would be fully fully protected by paint under the vinyl! It feels spot on underneath (no bubbles) but I will check properly. Thanks!

I had one on my Firenza when I first got it, but when the car was repainted I had it removed partly because I didn't like the look of it, and partly because I was a bit concerned about what was going on underneath it. Mine had some suspicious bubbles along the front edge of the roof, although they did turn out to be glue rather than anything worse.

As for what's underneath it, it all depends on whether it's a factory option - there's plenty of scope for it to have been fitted at a later date, in which case it will be painted underneath. Code 507 on the SPI plate denotes "Fabric roof covering (Onyx)".

I did also hear a tale that if a car reached the final inspection stage with a few dents in the front edge of the roof, if they were too difficult to sort out (the front edge has another piece below as you probably know, and a clue to it having had some dents is a hole along the edge of the windscreen aperture) then the solution was: customer gets a free vinyl roof.

Its definitely factory, as my dad ordered it when he bought the car.... interesting comments though!!