2. It's gonna get very ugly before we see any beauty around here.

It's winter here in Melbourne Australia. So the very first thing to do is to seal up the damage to the roof and make Lorca waterproof. The roof is fibreglass, which is one of the things that separates a Renault Master van from a comparably sized competitor, like an Iveco; or their smaller cousins the Ford Transit or Mercedes Sprinter (which are all steel). 

The advantage to a fibreglass roof is it is easy to maintain and repair, and will never rust. The disadvantage is that this roof is not as strong as other makes of van. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of having to repair the roof, but I am so glad I didn't have to repair steel. Let's have a look at the problem:

Someone had driven Lorca into a very hard and immovable object, which ripped a 2 metre hole along the passenger side of her roof. It tore through the exterior skin, and also through the structural elements of the interior of the roof also. One of the cross beams in the roof at the very back was cracked in half, and there was damage radiating out from the impact site in all directions. The previous owner had taped the damage up with gaffer tape, which had unstuck over time, and was letting a lot of water in. I decided this was the first job.

I removed the tape, used acetone to clean off the residue and road grime, sanded the area around the split with 36 grit sandpaper to give the fibreglass more surface area to adhere to, and lay down layers of polyester resin fibreglass to add strength and to keep out the water. 

Finding a sunny day to do this work in was not an easy task at this time of year, and only one layer of fibreglass could be laid down in a 24 hour period. So if there was a spot of clear weather, I'd have a layer of fibreglass added, then Lorca would be covered in a disposable tarp until the next clear part of a day. Building up these layers took most of the first two weeks.

Once enough thickness and strength had been added to the outside, the area was cleaned and sanded again, and a pot of bondo polyester putty was added to smooth out the surface. The bondo, the fibreglass resin, and the roof fibreglass are all polyster based, so the adhesion was excellent. The first crisis has been averted.

This next pic is the view after the first can of bondo. I anticipate I'll need two more- one to complete the first pass, and a second to fill in valleys and pinholes in the first layer. The seam where the fibreglass roof and the metal van body meet has been filled with Sikaflex 221, which acts not only as a barrier to water, but also as a strong adhesive. Lorca is waterproof at last!

Some time has passed and I have been working on some other projects in the build, but some fine weather has descended for a few days, so I took full advantage. I sanded the repaired area as flat as possible, and after masking around it, laid down a coat of primer.

The primer is a matte finish, and it was really helpful in showing up inconsistencies in the sanding and bondo work that were invisible otherwise. It also showed a lot of small pinholes in the bondo. I took the opportunity to add a small amount of bondo to these areas to fill them in.

The bondo was applied thinly, not to add volume but just to fill in the pinholes. That dried pretty quickly, and I was very motivated to see how it worked. So I sanded off a section and reapplied some primer there.

Looks pretty good! The pinholes were filled, and the surface was about as flat as its going to get without a professional doing it. After a huge amount of sanding, and reapplying the primer, I called it done. The entire area is now matte grey.

It's amazing to not be able to see that the roof was ever damaged, let along, had a 2 metre rip along it! 

During the next spot of sunshine, 2 coats of Glacier White auto paint was applied after thorough cleaning of the primer with wax and grease remover.

You can't even see where the damage was any more. Now it's the whitest part of the whole paintwork, which really shows the up the scuffs all over the exterior! Clear coat will need to be applied in 2 or 3 layers to protect the work done so far, but it's too late in the day for that right now.

While I was fixing the roof, I also filled, sanded, primed, painted, and clear coated over 20 spot repairs on the front of the roof where stones had been flicked up by other vehicles in the past.

Now that it has been wet sanded it looks almost new.

I also cut a panel out from the sliding door, and installed a window I bought online, as well as a little rain gutter that I fitted above the sliding door, new lenses on the wing mirror indicators, and the marker lights and missing trim have been replaced too. You can't see from this angle I have replaced the middle rear brake lens and right hand barn door magnet too, which were both missing at purchase.

The exterior is starting to look less disastrous at last.

Saturday 30 August, 2025.

In the next post we'll have a look inside the cargo area.

See you next time!