No problem for me. There's enough room between the canvas and the shelf to
reach up and zip the window open or closed. And enough room to fetch
things through the opening which lived in the luggage rack. We had the
shelf up all summer long, in some pretty hot weather when all the windows
were open all day and closed every night and I wasn't ever bothered by the
shelf being up there.

Really the only downside that I've found so far is that the crossmember is
not available to hang stuff from, but a with little foresight one can
easily hang hooks over the bar before cinching the shelf into place.

--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
KG6RCR

On 1/28/2008 7:52 PM Edward Maglott wrote:

> How about opening the window in the canvas?  Is that adversely
> affected by the shelf being there?
>
> Edward
>
> At 10:39 PM 1/28/2008, Michael Elliott wrote:
>> Good questions, although I'll thank you not to ask about my "junk" in a
>> public place.
>>
>> Yes, the shelf makes it a bit harder to hoist the lid. The crossbar is no
>> longer graspable, but it is shoveable. It took me a few times to figure
>> out how to hoist and drop the top but it works fine.
>>
>> What keeps the shelf from tipping over is where Tom's cleverness shows:
>> the crossarm has a couple bends in it, one at each end near where it
>> connects to the pivot hinge assemblies and the shelf, clamped to the main
>> horizontal middle section of the crossarm, rests on the bends. Lift your
>> poptop and see how the bendy parts provide horizontal support for the
>> shelf. I've had lots of stuff up there, like full boxes of groceries, and
>> unless the wood breaks or the u-bolt backing plates pull through the
>> shelf, it can't tip.
>>
>> --
>> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
>> 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
>> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
>> 74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
>> KG6RCR
>
>