Is there a roof vent available to fit Mk8 minibus sunroof?

[johnporter11]

Has anyone found an opening roof vent that will fit in place of the Mk8 minibus escape hatch?

[dumper]

Hi John when I was building mine I searched for quite a while but couldn’t find one and ended boarding it over on the inside as I ran out of time if you do search on the forum and I’m sure someone on here found one that will fit after I’d finished mine

[johnporter11]

Found it. You had a post on it. I PM'd him but no reply yet. You know, I'm having second thoughts on the whole thing. Mk8 roofs are too curved to attach a flat item. They'll always try to flatten the roof when tensioned up. The original minibus glass has a big curve in it.

[Redvee]

On the videos I've seen where converters have fitted a maxair vent they have filled the undulations in the rooves of Sprinters etc with sikaflex till they've built it up to be level with the rest of the roof. I don't know how curved the roof of a MK8 is so this might not work.

[johnporter11]

Yes, the fluting is one issue (and sometimes dealt with by using custom made spacers), but the general curve of the roof is what I'm worried about. In any case, I'd prefer to use the existing aperture for the minibus escape hatch. But it's very big.

[Antiriad2097]

Mk8 roofs are too curved to attach a flat item. They'll always try to flatten the roof when tensioned up. The original minibus glass has a big curve in it.

When I fitted a Fiamma vent to the top of my MK8 van, I cut the underlying wooden frame on the inside on a curve to keep the roof shape. On top I built up the outer edges with mastic strips then caked the lot with Sikaflex all round. Seems to be the common method from all the videos I watched on it.

[johnporter11]

Thanks for that. Yes, I can see that will retain the curve and prevent it from straightening the curve.