Ahh yes the roof…..man that thing was done. Now it seems to me that all of ouor beloved 45’s had some drainage issues with the roof. Mine must have developed some leaks around the gutters, maybe condensation is to blame also. I’m leaning more towards leaks. The horizontal channels at the top of the doors / windows, the edges of the roof, the support pillars, the curved sheet metal roof supports….everything up top was rusted. That and the whole thing is full up with compound curves. I was a little scared. I did a lot of staring and muttering…then finally I hacked something out to show I was committed. I started at the back side windows. A little z shaped bend and I was able to get the metal above the windows replaced. Next I pretty much made some strips of sheet metal. The tops of the support pillars I cut down, along with the tops of the door openings. I used the strips the replace the junk I cut out. It worked out ok. The crusty old body didn’t want to be welded though. It showed its discontent by vaporizing if I got the welder within a foot of it. The tops of the pillars had some gussets/reinforcements already. I kinda tried to duplicate them. The more I looked at my deteriorated roof the more I became concerned with its integrity. I used the gussets for added strength at the tops of the pillars, but I wont lie I used them to overlap my seams and hide some rotten looking welds.
The top of the front windshield was the worst by far. Gaping holes, an attempt to patch using fiberglass, not automotive stuff mind you…the thick stranded stuff you’d build a boat hull with. bad news I tell ya. Once again more staring and cursing. I removed half of the upper windshield/ roof . once I got it open and could see how it was fabbed originally. It didn’t seem that bad then.
I got two pieces of sheet metal strips, and zipped them together to make one long vertical strip. The roof is over 4’ wide and I only had 4x4 sheets, so I had to stick two together. Once it was dressed up I tacked it into place. the very top of the windshield is curved.it flares out and becomes the A pillar. I ended up making a C shaped strip of sheet metal, about ½” overall. I cut some relief cuts and matched the original radius the best I could. Once everything was fitted and measured, the strip was tacked into the new vertical strip. The C shaped piece I made 48” wide. This left about 3 inches or so at the ends. I think it gave me some support and some continuity over my seam in the vertical piece.
Above the top of the windshield frame there is a horizontal piece. Kinda looks like a baseball cap’s brim. This piece is where the roof and the top of the windshield kinda interface. I cut another 4’ piece about 12” wide. Used the brake to bend a ½” lip on one end. I had completely removed the rest of the old windshield frame by this time and used the old chunks to map out the curves on the front. Once I got the lines down I cut about ½” longer than I marked, and used the brake to try to bend it. It worked out marginally. The brake wants to bend straight of coarse, and I wanted to bend curves. I ended up taking out some of the teeth in the brake. And bending lots of little bends around the radius a little at a time. It got me the lip I need more or less. Hvac installers have a seam tool. Looks like a wide set of flat pliers. I need to get one To pretty the front lip up
Now I just had the corners to deal with. There was two parts to this mini-series. There was the tops of the windshield/ a pillar, and the horizontal portion of the gutter/ baseball cap lookin’ part. The horizontal part was kinda just the same as the rest of the work. I made a template using some cardboard and the old pieces I cut out. I left the leading edge a bit longer, cut some relief tabs, and bent ‘em up with some pliers. A few bad looking welds later…..they were in place! the tops of the pillars was more of the same. Template, hand bend, check and tweak, then bend a few relief tabs to meet up with my C channel and window flange. I didn’t line up perfectly…..i’ll have to use a smidgeon of filler to blend it in. I duplicated some gussets for the horizontal transition at the top of the window, on the inside of the cab….and put them bad boys in too. I still have to finish welding, grinding etc to pretty stuff up. But that can happen later….besides that stuff isn’t as interesting as the fabbing. Its like pictures of house work or something.
Still…. when I was done I was still skeptical of the strength of the whole roof /pillar assembly. I still needed to get inside the top of the roof at the gutters. There was remains of some angled pieces of sheet metal that the makers used to reinforce top horizontal channel/gutter assembly. This I saw but didn’t address when making the inside pieces of the channel. The roof was still on and I didn’t really have a good way to get to them, besides.. I had real concerns that if I removed too much of the channel at once the whole thing might fold up like a taco or something.
I saw a post of a LV that had been in a crash and it rolled or flipped or something. The Poor FJ was pretty mangled, and looked to be in must better condition rust wise than mine. This left me thinking of a few problems I didn’t have the answer to….i knew I needed to pack it up and replace the whole roof. There were too many holes and bad spots to just patch up. Besides…with my level of expertise I’d never get any continuity. You’d see every seam, angle, and bend. Coupled with the fact that I had little faith in my rusted hull I knew something had to be done. I just didn’t trust it. The problem plagued me for a week or two. Then one night, I was in my bathroom trying to fix something. I stooped over to fix something, and hit my head on the sink when I got back up…that’s when the idea hit me…….the Flux Capacitor!!!!! Naa but I did get a plan…..more on that later.
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You didn't mention that square tube will take waaaay longer to create a bend. I'm all for new 
& if you get all the bends really accurate & uniform, I bet it'll look really good & *might not look too cheap. Did you build all the arches at once or make a template? How many points will tie into the frame? I'm not really diggin the bars laying on the floor, not very clean IMO. I would have welded outriggers, under the body & from the frame, to catch all the door pillars. That means you go thru the floor. I designed an 8 pt. cage for my 
that way. I also went thru the roof to support a roof rack. I had to fab up some waterproof bases there. A good thing about using round tube is the fully welded junctions will show the full weld material. With the square tubing, you *need to grind down & flush the welds & that takes away from the integrity & strength of the cage design.
