RTT over truckbed - any pointers or experiences? Price? Model?

shock81

New member
I'm looking to install a RTT over my 8' truck bed. I will have to use bars that are fairly flush with the bed rails in order to allow it to go into the garage with the tent installed (24" max clearance from the currently naked bed rails).

My current tonneau choice is the Retrax Pro RX retractable with yakima or rhino rack bars installed. I haven't found another other retractable tonneau with a "roof" rack that fits on an 8 foot bed. I like the retractable idea because I can convert back to a normal truck bed. There might be some other tonneau configurations that I'm not seeing yet.

I'm currently using a small A-frame pop-up trailer (A-Liner A-Lite aka A-Lite 400) that is about 55" by 78" inside. I really don't want to go smaller, especially on the longer dimension. However, having the RTT so close to the bed essentially blocks much of the access to contents inside the bed. It also seems odd to me to have a tonneau covering a bed that is already covered with the RTT (but security and dryness seem to leave me no other option).

I'm looking at hard top tents for ease of setup and bc it seems more "permanent" to me. I'll generally leave it on year-round, only removing it on the rare occasion I need to put something tall in the truck bed. The truck is not my daily driver and pretty much just sits in the garage until a roadtrip or a house project.

I really like the JB Evasion XXL or Grand Raid or the Autohome Maggiolina Airland Plus MedXL. I'm leaning to the Autohome because the narrower width allows some access to the bed contents if I push the tent towards one side on the rails, but I hate to give up the extra room offered by the JBs. I also really like the idea of the solar fans in the JBs as I would do a lot of hot weather camping.

This setup is getting very expensive--I'm seeing $6000-$7000+ for tent, tonneau, and rack pieces. I'm feeling a little nuts, but in this range it seems silly to worry about $1000 if quality or usage would suffer.

Are there other RTT brands that are as good as the Autohome/JBs? Is there anything you think I should re-think overall?

Thanks for any input.
 

mobydick 11

Active member
I am just building out a truck bed camper and a 4x8 aluminum trailer . the camper part is a ARE aluminum cap with full side doors and full height barn doors on the back . what I am doing is you open the back doors 90 degrees to the cap ,then pop on a new back wall with door and a floor and roof section . this all sits on top of the tailgate . the trailer will carry all the gear and ARB awning and add a room . we camp in bear country so my wife will not sleep in canvas or tent material .I am not doing under bed storage, so with the back on we have a big area to sleep and sit and read .
 

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