question for roof raisers

adamanderr

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2007
Posts
137
has anyone into roof raising noticed a slight cant in the window area, seems to be from bottom of window to top leaning in, if so what did you do about it. i have an 85 thomas body and i'm pretty sure it does just that.
thanks
 
"can't" is a word we don't use around here! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist......I'm of no help.
 
While I have not, and have no plans to raise my roof, I can confirm that your sides taper inward from the bottom sill up. My Thomas does the same thing which is why I tapered my framing studs that mounted against the wall.

I'm sure someone out there has a solution to your question, hopefully they'll sound off soon. Again, I'm not planning on raising mine, but I'd like to know the answer to this too. (Ya just never know. . . :wink: )

It seems to me that it wouldn't be that big a deal to me to straighten the posts after the dividing cut, but I don't know if the roof of a "tapered-wall" bus is narrower compared to a "straight-wall" bus.
 
You're right, Adamanderr. I have a 92 Thomas body we raised the roof on. I didn't notice the cant when we started because we hit the ground running so fast. When we got the roof up the 18" we wanted, what I did was weld my tubing to the top first. Like that the bottom of my tubing then had to be pulled in about 3". I just pulled it in with a clamp and then welded the bottom. I ran string lines at the top and bottom to try and keep things in line and there was still a little variance. (you can look at pics in our gallery). When I started the int. trim there is basically a 2" inward taper from bottom to top. Most of the taper being above 36" off the floor. I didn't taper my studs. And yeah it has been somewhat of a PITA, but that said, if you make a pattern at the start that fits your wall, with a little tweaking here and there you can use it all the way through. It's like everything else in this bus conversion process, some things are more work than others. On a roof raise I would think tapering your studs would lose you too much interior width at the floor and I imagine the taper on the frame is also structural so you probably wouldn't want to straighten it out even if you could. All that said, the taper is actually not that noticeable except where I had to taper the corresponding trim. Raise your roof! It's fun and worth it! I'll come help!
 
:D
I remember Les Lampman mentioned that his Thomas also tapered. (No progress on that one since -- he's too busy with work.) I would just tweak it like Reprobate says. You're not building a watch here. :LOL:
If you don't feel like applying force, you could install your inserts (extension material) vertically by fudging the attachment angle a tad at both ends. But then the wall surface would zigzag and be goofy to skin.
Some stout C clamps should do it. Buy some if you don't have them -- you can never have enough C clamps.
:D
 

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