Height Adjustment for a Roof Top Tent on an Adventure Trailer...Ideas

[mrwizard]

There's been several places here on ExPo and on other forums where people have mentioned that they're working on a height adjustable mount for the roof top tent on their adventure/expedition trailers. To fully utilize the annex on non-trailer specific roof top tents (RTTs) the tent needs to be mounted somewhere over 6' high, however this isn't the best for keeping the center of gravity low on-road and on-trail. Some kind of stable and secure height adjustment would be idea. Keep the tent low to the trailer during travel but raise it while at camp.

Has anyone successfully built anything like this? What ideas do you have? Pictures are by far the best, accompanying detailed descriptions!

 

[Finlay]

Jeremy at Expedition Ops has engineered a system for his trailer using lock pins and pneumatic pistons.

 

[mrwizard]

That is sweet! How does it retract?

 

[Momrocks]

Very clever.

I'm glad this thread was started. I am curious to see some solutions. I'm a big fan of the simple solutions they generally end up the most reliable. I wonder what we'll see? :lurk:

 

[Hill Bill E.]

Very clever.

I'm glad this thread was started. I am curious to see some solutions.

Same here! I have some ideas in my head, just haven't sketched anything out yet.

I like Jeremy's design! Might have to make a road trip down to see him, and check that out.


I also want to keep the tent low while driving, yet be able to utilize the annex on my new Mt Rainier from CVT.

I'll be following along, and will post up any ideas I come up with.

That is sweet! How does it retract?

X2 Hopefully he has a vid of it going down.

 

[jeepfreak81]

This is the idea my buddy came up with and we want to try the feasibility of. It would stop when the risers are vertical, and have some lock bars, to keep it from being too wobbly. He even mentioned maybe a cable/crank system to raise it. Maybe robbing one from a boat trailer.

 

[mrwizard]

This is the idea my buddy came up with and we want to try the feasibility of. It would stop when the risers are vertical, and have some lock bars, to keep it from being too wobbly. He even mentioned maybe a cable/crank system to raise it. Maybe robbing one from a boat trailer.

That is a very similar design to what I was thinking. I wonder if you could find gas charged struts (2-4) strong enough to at least assist, if not completely lift, the tent.

 

[ex m38a1er]

I think that you can have rect tubes in each corner.
Then a rect tube fitted in the above tube acting as an extending pole that will be rised from a gas strut that will be
inside the pole.
The lower bolt of the gas strut will be in the lower point of the external tube and the upper gas strut bolt will be somewhere in the lower part(1/3?)
of the inside pole.
You will need a small boat hand winch to pull it back down but that's the easy part!

 

[Hill Bill E.]

.......
You will need a small boat hand winch to pull it back down but that's the easy part!

If the struts have enough 'Ooomph' to them, you could use the crank to control the rise, and then to crank it back down when done.

If the struts are inside the square tubing, you would have to have some sort of set screw style 'lock bolt', as you could not put a pin through (strut would be in the way)


I may go a similar route, but keep the struts outside (instead of inside the square tube)

Then I could use a through pin in the square tube. And the struts would be easy to access for maintenance/etc.

During travel, the struts would be closed, so no worry about damage to the inner rod.

Great idea!

 

[UK4X4]

http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...h-Changing-room?highlight=trailer+tent+height


for another thread

My later trailer I built - I set up so the bed came foward over the empty space of the hitch so height was not an issue arround the trailer

 

[jeepfreak81]

http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...h-Changing-room?highlight=trailer+tent+height


for another thread

My later trailer I built - I set up so the bed came foward over the empty space of the hitch so height was not an issue arround the trailer

This would not allow the use of the annex room though, which is our goal. Edit: Just looked at the link, good options there!

 

[Pritchnakoff]

I wonder if you could find gas charged struts (2-4) strong enough to at least assist, if not completely lift, the tent.

If the struts have enough 'Ooomph' to them, you could use the crank to control the rise, and then to crank it back down when done.

Here is a great site I found when researching for gas charged struts to lift the lid on my trailer build; they have single struts that can push up to 500lbs!

 

[DiscoCO]

I am trying to figure out the best place to mount my tent and the best way to attach it. I had it on top of my Discovery last week and it's a bit high (will need to purchase a ladder extension if I decide to leave it on the roof). I am now considering putting it on my CDN M101 trailer. I don't have a lid yet so I was considering my options. I thought about some Thule artificial rain gutters screwed to the side of the trailer then use my Thule cross bars. However, this makes getting to any gear in the trailer very challenging (I don't have a tailgate on the trailer) and I wouldn't be able to fully use the annex/man-canvas cave! Unfortunately I don't weld so I was going to start looking for fabricators near Denver to put together at least some sort of rack/cage for me to mount the tent to.

I just saw some Thule Xsporter truck racks and thought could I possibly mount those to the rails of my trailer and have the ability to raise the tent to camp and lower the tent to travel (albeit all manually which might be difficult). Does anyone have any experience with the Thule Xsporter? Any thoughts on mounting it on the rails of the trailer? Looks like the Thule has a 450lb limit and my tent weighs in around 170lbs so I should be able to still safely sleep with two young kids. I'm not sure if the contours of the rail/bed will even allow me to mount the Xsporter.

Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[69Chevy]

Just getting ready to start my project. I'm kicking around the idea of using electric camper jacks (if I can find some used ones, they are a bit expensive), but will allow me to bring rtt close to my lid while driving and allow raising up to fully support annex with just a push of a button.

 

[skirescue]

New Build with Adustable Height RTT

Well I finally got my build started and ran into the same problem. Our Eezi-Awn T-Top1600 annex room is 84" high. Too high for CG problems. Here is my concept drawing. I have fabricated the mechanism and mounted the tent. Right now I am waiting for the calcs to come back on gas struts. I have also looked at linear actuators. I will post pics over the week end. Everything is fab'd with either ball bearings or flanged ball bearings.