Picked up a Northstar TC800

kerry

Expedition Leader
How long did it take you? Was the wood solid? Any problems getting the torsion spring back in the right place?
 

ripperj

Explorer
It took me two mornings because my son was at work in the afternoon and it’s a two person job.

It wasn’t very difficult to get the torsion spring back in the correct spot.
I marked the spring and the rear bracket with a sharpie before taking it apart. It did take a few hammer blows with the torsion shaft in a vice to get the bracket off. The front part of the spring slipped into place by wiggling the rear arm and holding it just a bit outboard of vertical.

The only part that was semi difficult was pulling the rear tube inward to get the front tube( that connects to the mechanism) reinstalled . It takes a bit of force.

Getting the sheet metal screw back in the front tube(that holds it to the main part and sets the roof height I think) was easy once I figured out that if I started cranking the roof down with a 2x4 still holding up the roof, the tube connected to the the lift mechanism would slowly pull itself down the other tube until the holes lined up. The whole roof is held up with two sheet metal screws in shear( two tubes one inside the other with the screw setting the height)

The wood was dry and pretty solid, I could see that it had been wet at one point. When the torsion bars twist the bracket, it forces the 1/4-20 bolts at an angle, which distorts the wood pretty badly.
The way I did the repair , the wood is sandwiched between the two plates and doesn’t really do much anymore, all the torque is transferred to 8? Screws that span the 40” flat stock. If I had a level driveway, I would have done both sides at the same time and used a single 7’ pc of flat stock that spanned both brackets, but I was worried about dumping the roof off the camper if I disconnected both sides together. I was too lazy to make an elaborate support assembly.


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Last edited:

kerry

Expedition Leader
Those two screws in shear have always struck me as dicey. But mine is a 95 and they haven’t failed yet. You could join the two 40” pieces with a third piece in the middle if you are worried.
 

ripperj

Explorer
I thought about the third piece, I even have a piece left, but it would get pretty thick and I didn’t want to make a mess out of the track that the canvas attached to.

Did you ever end up with new canvas? I thought I saw a post where you might upgrade when you replaced your roof.


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kerry

Expedition Leader
I did not. I still have the original roof. The dealer who was going to supply the new roof and canvas stopped communicating with me after he gave me the estimate, so I gave up. I've made repairs to the interior ceiling as well as repairing the strengthening the sides of the original roof, so right now I'm not anticipating replacing the roof.
 

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