Advice on RTT rack design and placement

[jd-santaclarita]

Hi All - I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure out how to go about mounting a RTT to my trailer. Ultimately I'd like to have it on a lift system of some kind (either jacks or actuators) but I'm struggling with the basics of where to even start the rack design. Given the design of the trailer and the aluminum framed lid, where do you think the best mounting placement should be?

I'm kind of thinking it should be based on vertical square tubing uprights on the outside of the tub so that the lid could be opened with the tent raised and to not have to brace the aluminum lid as much (not sure its sufficient strength to hold the tent and people if i mounted it directly to the lid). The issue I have is there are no flat surfaces on the bottom of the trailer to easily place the uprights on to brace them (i.e. no rear flat ledge behind the fender for example). So I would have to weld or bolt the uprights to the side of the trailer (or have some ledges welded in probably professionally, i dont trust my noob skills).

Would love your thoughts or advice, I definitely want to get this built and get on the trail, i'm just a little timid to pick a design or route when I've got no experience in this space.

Thanks - JD

 

[Martyinco]

Weld uprights on the corners and use that to support the rack and actuators, similar to my build minus the lid.

 

[Jmanscotch]

If you're going to go for some sort of lift system, then you're more or less limited to doing the side post mounts, like Marty's.

Just to offer some food for thought; if you do ultimately decide to do a fixed mount rack, I'd see no issue welding a rack directly to the lid. The racks base mounts could mount to the perimeter border of the lid. This will fix any real structural issues you might be concerned with as then, while the lid is closed, the weight of the rack/RTT and occupants will be supported by the main trailer box and not just the aluminum lid. The aluminum should be fine to support just the rack (<50 lbs) and RTT (~125-150 lbs) when opening it.

Obviously you'd then need to upgrade the gas struts for the lid and it looks like you only have one mounted on the trailer, so that might be more work, but it's an option.

Personally, I don't typically like the cosmetic appeal of rack rails mounted directly to the exterior of the trailer box. That said, your trailer already has the 'beams' mounted on the outside of the trailer so adding the rack to the exterior would fit with the style it's already got going for it and likely look very intentional.

Jake

 

[jd-santaclarita]

Thanks for the advice. I've almost fully decided on going with a hardshell rtt such as the alu-cab gen 3, which would remove any need to raise/lower the rtt itself as there is no annex involved. That changes things with mounting options and lends itself to being able to mount directly to the lid as jake mentioned. I'm assuming there are some kind of standard support rails that would work? Are there preferences in type/brand that I should check out?

Thanks,
JD

 

[Jmanscotch]

I'm not aware of any real specific made support rails for a trailer. As far as I'm concerned you'll have to decide between getting something custom fabricated by someone or adapt a pre-made setup that you can DIY.

The custom setup can obviously be designed with whatever you want in mind, but will likely need to be welded on (so that the weight is on the outside rim of the tops structure and using bolts here would cause a physical obstruction to the sealing surface/lid closing) and will likely need to be aluminum, since you'd be welding it to aluminum. Aluminum pieces and welding isn't cheap. Then there's repainting (wrapping with the camo) the exposed metal after welding. You could a custom metal rack built and designed with a "L" shaped foot. Enjoy my CAD drawing explaining this at the bottom of the post.

The DIY hack-something-together approach would be way cheaper, probably removable and/or adjustable, would avoid you damaging the existing camo wrap and would still be plenty strong.

Personally I like the idea of trying to bolt something on, it's just simpler yet gets the job done. There's still a few hurdles to that approach. Exactly where the bolts pass through will have to be planned out to avoid the sealing edge issue.

You could look into adding a rain gutter like adapter to the lid then run a typical cross bar system based on that (though I'll offer a small word of advice here, just using two of those 1" square tube cross bars will allow some flex to them with a RTT mounted). Here's a link to a full kit, the idea being you can drill horizontal bolt holes through the lids exterior framing, bolt the rain gutter feet to the lid and then the rack mounts to those. No bolt interferring with lid closing/sealing, it's bolt on and only a minor inpact on the existing wrap/finish. https://compact-camping-concepts-2.myshopify.com/products/thule-raingutter-rack-set

Some folks get the top rail system off a junk yard SUV/Crossover with a flat-ish roof that have factory cross bars and will simply section that down to the correct length and bolt it on a trailer lid. This would be comparable to the Chaser Adventure Trailers running a Thule rack on slider mounts.

Just some quick ideas to get plans flowing.

 

[jd-santaclarita]

Thanks. I like the idea of trying to do the L shaped bracket with the bolts attaching through the side. The weight looks like it would not be on the bolts but on the lid/edges itself through the vertical supports. The one thing I may worry about is getting enough structural support on those side bolts through the aluminum lid rails to not rip off at high wind and speeds on highway. I'm assuming 3 x L brackets with 2 support bolts each on each side should be ok. Is there any "standard" rack setup I should use so that I can get standard adapters to lock the RTT onto the rails?

 

[4x4runner2002]

Nice trailer. My buddy built that one. Like that actual one hahaha

Love the tail lights the best. So much I put them on my trailer.