Trooper roof

Hi all, I have been having a search around and can’t find any info regarding a thought I am having. 

The roof on my T5 Trooper is starting to look a bit tired, could do with a re paint, but also as my kids are getting a bit bigger is becoming less practical as they are finding it a little cramped up there. 

So my question is, has anyone enquires about or indeed carried out a roof swap to the typical canvas pop top type roof?

Are there any pictures of vans with the roof removed so I can get an idea of what might be involved. 

I really don’t want to go down the selling and buying route as this van is perfect in every way apart from the roof. 

Any input would be greatly received

We got a pup tent for our twin boys who thought it was great.
IMHO the old style hard sided A/S roof was the business, be a shame to spoil it.
We had the A/S Renault RV50 for over 8yrs and hauled the lads and their BB mates everywhere
until the 1400cc engine failed and then in order to upgrade I had to have a new short engine fitted. 
Those were the days!!
frederic

Later Troopers were fitted from the factory with a different roof (by Reimo, IIRC), and there was a crossover period during which A/S sold both (the one with the Reimo roof being called a Low-Line model, or similar name, and which had an electrically operated roof as an option).

Whether you could have the folding roof removed and a canves-sided one put on in place will depend mainly on how different the aperture sizes are, I would think. The folding roof is relatively wide - significantly wider than the pop-top on my Celex, for example. I would think that costs would be in the range £3-4k, and you may struggle to find a fitter to do the job, as they often don't like doing roof conversions with the interior furniture already fitted.

Hi all, just following on from this (and sensing your deep experience with Trooper roofs) we have just bought a Trooper and compared to a previous Houldsworth conversion we had (roof was all one piece rather than 3) the pop up roof is very drafty. We will have a 3 year old up there and are a bit worried about her getting cold or bitten by midgies. Has anyone also experienced this or come up with a simple fix? Thanks in advance for any advice.

lucytrooper wrote:Hi all, just following on from this (and sensing your deep experience with Trooper roofs) we have just bought a Trooper and compared to a previous Houldsworth conversion we had (roof was all one piece rather than 3) the pop up roof is very drafty. We will have a 3 year old up there and are a bit worried about her getting cold or bitten by midgies. Has anyone also experienced this or come up with a simple fix? Thanks in advance for any advice.

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lucytrooper wrote:Hi all, just following on from this (and sensing your deep experience with Trooper roofs) we have just bought a Trooper and compared to a previous Houldsworth conversion we had (roof was all one piece rather than 3) the pop up roof is very drafty. We will have a 3 year old up there and are a bit worried about her getting cold or bitten by midgies. Has anyone also experienced this or come up with a simple fix? Thanks in advance for any advice.

I'm sorry to say that my solution (when I owned/used an '80s A/S conversion) was to buy a newspaper every day, and if it was a windy night or a midgey area, then scrumble it up and stuff lengths of it into the gaps around the roof side panels! It wasn't perfect, but it helped.

I guess it would be possible (and more elegant) to chop up lengths of something like pipe insulation, which could be pushed into the gaps once the roof was up?

Be thankful that you haven't got a more recent roof (assuming your forum profile is correct and your van dates from '93). Some time after this, rules were brought in that mandated fixed ventilation in the roof, and the reaction at A/S was simply to chop a lump out of the top of one of the roof side panels! Where other manufacturers bothered to engineer solutions that included insect mesh, A/S didn't put the effort in - just a big gaping hole to the outside world!!