Need advice on adding a rooftop tent to my DiamondBack bed cover

[Sendit6.5]

I’m looking to add a rooftop tent onto my ‘22 F350 Platinum Tremor and I need some help/advice. I’m leaning towards something like an iKamper 3.0 - I want the comfort and the size of a larger and premium tent. I’m also considering a FreeSpirit model. I’m open to other suggestions but these two seem to fit my size (6’2”) best.

Question 1: Should I seek a mounting system that keeps my tent (which will be mounted over the 6’8” bed and to the DiamondBack HD bed cover) even with the height of my truck cab? I have a UpTop Overland Alpha rack on top of the cab. OR, would there be an advantage to finding a shorter mounting solution so that the tent sits closer to the bed cover? My inclination is to have the tent roof be even with the roof of the cab, so that I have either additional storage room (between the bottom of the tent and the top of the Diamondback bed cover?

Question 2: Suggestions on a specific mounting system for a DB bed cover and one of these tents?

Question 3: Any other suggestions on RTT’s you’d recommend? I’m mainly concerned with comfort, ease/speed of deployment and amenities. I could go with something much simpler but not my wife, or a couple of the kids, lol! I’m trying to build this out in a way that’ll appeal to them!

Any help/advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I look forward to your replies.

Nick

 

[Sendit6.5]

Seriously? Nobody has any help/advice to offer?

 

[OVRLNDFX4]

Try reaching out to extrusion overland. They make one of the best modular racks out there. They can also customize to any height you desire. The people over there are extremely helpful and they might possibly have a solution to mounting thier rack on top of your diamond back cover. Only issue i would see is the tri fold design of the DB cover bieng able to open up. If your up to switching maybe a sliding tonneau cover might be a better solution? I ran my previous extrusion rack with a RETRAX copy cover and with a tiny modification it worked perfectly and still "locked". Say that loosely cause anyone can open a "locked" tonneau cover.

As for tents skys the limit. Roofnest, IKAMPER, tuff stuff overland all make 3-4 person sized tents but with being so big they have to open east to west. theres no way your going to fit a family in a wedge style camper. Just not enough head room. Id def go hard shell for faster deployment/teardown. Ive done them all. Wedge, straight pop up, soft shell, etc. They all have thier pros/cons.

Hope this helps.

 

[Trestle]

I'd mount the tent so that the top of it ends up at roughly the same height as how you will travel most of the time. i.e. if you have a rack on the cab that sits empty, set the top of the tent to the top of that empty rack. It you keeps bins or something in it most of the time, adjust to the top of those.

This way you get the draft, and no hit to fuel mileage, and will be able to store items below. Be they on the top of your bed cover, or with the bed cover left open and stored in the bed itself.

Roofnest makes an iKamper knock off. Not sure if it is as good, but you will pay a lot less on the item and save even more not paying for shipping (unless things have changed, Roofnest built shipping into the price and iKamper didn't last I checked). I have a different style of Roofnest on the wife's 100 series. Other than the way they layer the window screens which is just plain silly, we have few other issues with it. OK the mattress sucks, but they all do to a bit. First world problems.

All of my racks have been self built at various levels of complexity. Use the right size/thickness of steel and you get a plenty robust product that doesn't weigh a lot. You could probably come up with your design and have a local fabricator (depending upon your local market) build exactly what you want for less than buying some of the turn key products. Put enough thought into it, and it could be customized to your exact needs. I have not used extrusion overland, but the principle of what they are doing seems clever enough. Basically an erector set. My bet, I have never looked at their pricing so take it with a grain of salt, is that it adds up super quick though.

No idea on you bed cover though, so can't shed any light there.

Could you put a pulley setup in your garage where the entire tent/rack can removed from the truck, then drop your cover on? Think about how they used to make pulley systems for hard topped wranglers back in the day for easy on/off and storage. Again, not exactly sure what you're working with.

 

[Terra]

Diamondback’s website has two options: Frontrunner and Yakima, hope it helps.

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