I'm in the middle of the build process on my trailer and am working on the lid. I'm planning on having a RTT on it at a later date so I will be installing gas pistons but I have to save up for the tent. I don't want to rely on gas pistons to hold the entire weight of the lid up. They always seem to fail or start slowly bleeding off, etc. My concerns with the lid is that there is a lot of weight raised in the air just waiting to fall on an unsuspecting victim (such as my kids) and I want to see what other people have done to guarantee that their lid doesn't fall.
At first I was thinking about a rod such as the hood on a toyota pickup. I just don't feel that this is secure enough, if the wind caught the lid while it was up it could possibly lift the lid until the rod came out of the hole and then slam. I know the odds of this happening would be very low but with that much weight it could severely hurt someone if it fell on them.
Here is a quick picture that I put together to show what I was thinking of building and attaching to the lid. So when the lid is lifted the bracket opens up and then the locking adapter slides down over the hinge point of the support and prevents the support bracket from being able to close. Thoughts or pictures would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Justin
At first I was thinking about a rod such as the hood on a toyota pickup. I just don't feel that this is secure enough, if the wind caught the lid while it was up it could possibly lift the lid until the rod came out of the hole and then slam. I know the odds of this happening would be very low but with that much weight it could severely hurt someone if it fell on them.
Here is a quick picture that I put together to show what I was thinking of building and attaching to the lid. So when the lid is lifted the bracket opens up and then the locking adapter slides down over the hinge point of the support and prevents the support bracket from being able to close. Thoughts or pictures would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Justin