New Canvas

Well, I have been lax this year in updating the blog.  My apologies, if anyone is still reading of course.  A couple of things to get you up to speed.  I can’t remember if I mentioned this previously but the canvas in the pop top ripped earlier this year.  Not a huge deal but it was big enough that I had to slap some gorilla tape on it to keep it from ripping further. 

 

I ordered a new hemp blend canvas from gowest.com  It was a little pricey but I figured I wanted something that was durable, going to last and that was going to fit.  The canvas arrived a couple of weeks ago.  I called up my friend Matt and asked to see if he was up for some Westy work.  Thankfully he was up for it do I threw some beers in the cooler, grabbed my tools and headed out to Cochrane, AB to replace the canvas. 

Once I got there we got down to business.  We cracked a couple of beers and took a look at how to tackle this job. It seemed easy enough.  There was a gasket at the bottom of the canvas that was easily removed by taking out the Phillips head screws.  Then it was on to the tough part.  Taking off the top.  Let me say this for anyone thinking about replacing a canvas on the Westy pop-top… it can be done with 2 people but really taking that top off and putting it back on it a 4 person job.  Seeing as it was just Matt and me, we kept calm and soldiered on. 

We undid the bolts that held it at the top then went to work on the brackets that held it on at the bottom.  It was a little tricky with the bracket of the bottom due the strange angles and confined space but we managed. 

Once the top was off we took the old canvas off and went to work with our handy dandy staple gun attaching the new one.  Once we got the new canvas attached to the top we went about putting it back on the bus.  That was the hard part where having 4 people would have made a world of difference.  We got the top back on and all the brackets secured and went to work securing the bottom of the canvas to the bus. 

Overall it went fairly well.  Friday, I headed out to Dinosaur Trail Provincial park for a weekend of camping with a shiny new canvas.