Hard side westy type pop up?

[98dango]

With my wife and I moving camping duties to my Ramcharger I find the roof a little low. This got me thinking of a recent Westy top conversion on a Surburban. http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...lso-dual-360-swivel-seats?highlight=westy+top .

Now my wife has made it very clear from the start that hard sides are a must. So my thought has been to build a hard side fold flat pop top. I don't need a ton of space but 18" would be great with a taper to the back. Now with plastic and cell core foam this could be done I think.

Things I see this requires bracing the roof making hinges and a way to keep this all from falling in on us while moving.

I think with a roof rack to help protect this and bolted directly to the roof this would give support to the top. Using automotive door seal I should be able to keep the weather out when folded down. Adjustable latches used on pop up campers should provide the needed tension to seal.

Any one have a better solution or plan for this.

 

[mtnbike28]

Look into this guy's build - http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...ltimate-buildup-thread!!!?highlight=allochris

 

[dbreid]

As the guy building the Suburban in your first link, I can assure you it is not easy. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time on the smallest things, because... well.. Westfalia tops were not made to fit Suburbans.

However, I believe that on a Ramcharger you'll find a few things:

1.) The Ramcharger is too short. Heck, even the SUBURBAN was too short for this, and we had to shorten the top.
2.) If you measure out how the hinges work, I think you'll find that you want something that pops STRAIGHT up. That will be a better fit for the Ramcharger than the "hinge" up thing I did. You get a lot more room that way.
3.) What does "hard" siding mean? They have panels you can put in to insulate stuff (look at 4WheelCamper) or you could do a tent/flexible top and then have snap in panels? The cloth top in mine is really good, but I cannot imagine how fiddly it would be if I had tried to deal with scissoring hard sides. Do you need to hard side all 4 sides?

I will follow this project! I love it when folks are creative!

 

[RocKrawler]

Look into apache hard side pop up camper trailers, they fold into themselves and doesn't seem it would be a big deal.