I don't have any pictures of what came next but it was the most stressful part of the entire build. The roof. I could not come up with a lifting mechanism design that fit inside the camper and was able to securely lift the heavy roof. We tried using 4 gas struts, like the ones that open a SUV tailgate, to push the roof up. I designed 4 folding wood arms at each corner, similar to what I had seen inside popup truck campers, to guide the roof in an up/down motion while the struts did the lifting. This proved to be extremely unstable. At one point, while lifted nearly 4 feet above the camper walls, the roof began to fall to the side. My wife ran for cover while we fully expected the roof to collapse and rip one of the walls down with it. Amazingly it stopped just before crashing down and the walls didn't budge an inch. After multiple failed attempts, I resigned my dream to have a popup roof and converted to a clamshell design.
Failed design
- IMG_7013 copy.jpg (55.44 KiB) Viewed 2486 times
I purchased a heavy duty 6 ft piano hinge from a local welding shop. The front of the camper was modified with a 2x4 and steel angle running laterally inside the camper to support the huge hinge. Lining up the hinge was very tedious. It had to be mounted to the trailer body first and needed to be perfectly square. If it was off by the slightest amount the far end of the roof, 10 ft away, wouldn't line up with the camper when closed. Lots of measuring and marking and it came out perfect.
- 90 copy.jpg (51.23 KiB) Viewed 2562 times
Attaching the roof to the hinge. Notice the rectangular canvas patches on the front of the camper. With the initial design to pop straight up I needed a way to clamp the roof closed so it wouldn't open on the highway. I completely forgot to build somewhere for the clasps to attach - can't attach to foam - and remembered after the canvas was applied. I cut a hole in the canvas, cut out a swath of foam and glued/screwed a piece of wood in there, glued a canvas patch over it and painted everything. Unfortunately with the change to clamshell none of that was necessary and now there are 3 large patches on the front of the camper. Oh well, live and learn.
- 91 copy.jpg (31.6 KiB) Viewed 2562 times