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Any hard side pop-up conversions?
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Any hard side pop-up conversions?
by Zipline65 » Wed Jul 31, 2013 11:05 am
I've been living on CL Chicago for months watching for a used Tear. I've missed out on a few that were in our price range. I've seen some pop-ups in our range that have the hard sides when raised up. We can get by without the fold out beds on the sides. Has anyone found a way to replace those canvas sides with a hard wall? The pop-up base is perfect for us - dinette/bed, small kitchen and storage - with room for a port-potty.
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Re: Any hard side pop-up conversions?
by Bogo » Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:50 pm
I wouldn't bother to convert a tent pop up to hard sides. There are allot of significant issues, and would likely be easier to strip down to the frame and build new. You may consider having a set of tent sides made that don't have the side tents.
On converting: All tent pop ups I know of have more than 50% of their final height above the top of the bottom walls. That means the walls need to fold up somehow or there needs to be more than one lifting layer. On cable and spring lift pop up designs, the lifting mechanism will get in the way of folding the walls in. When you do get a set of walls that folds up, the stack of them inside will likely be higher than what the fabric took up space wise. Now the top won't seal properly to the bottom during travel so dust and water will get in. The ones with the exterior lift mechanisms could have walls that fold to the inside. The top on most of them is near the same size as the bottom so you will need to enlarge the roof to go over the side walls. If the top is light enough, and you get rid of the original lift mechanism, the front and rear walls can be made so they hinge at the top, bottom, and in the middle. Manually operating one at a time would lift the top, then the side walls could be folded into place to fully stabilize the top.
On converting: All tent pop ups I know of have more than 50% of their final height above the top of the bottom walls. That means the walls need to fold up somehow or there needs to be more than one lifting layer. On cable and spring lift pop up designs, the lifting mechanism will get in the way of folding the walls in. When you do get a set of walls that folds up, the stack of them inside will likely be higher than what the fabric took up space wise. Now the top won't seal properly to the bottom during travel so dust and water will get in. The ones with the exterior lift mechanisms could have walls that fold to the inside. The top on most of them is near the same size as the bottom so you will need to enlarge the roof to go over the side walls. If the top is light enough, and you get rid of the original lift mechanism, the front and rear walls can be made so they hinge at the top, bottom, and in the middle. Manually operating one at a time would lift the top, then the side walls could be folded into place to fully stabilize the top.
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