Overland Hadley...with the great care you have taken to be as lightweight as possible, you may want to consider this porta potti http://www.thebrowncorporation.com/
:Wow1:
:Wow1:
The TARDIS - A Four Wheel Camper Build
- Thread starter Overland Hadley
- Start date
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Oh man, I would fill a container if I were you.
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Thanks for the link Jason. :Wow1: indeed.
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Spring is here! Well, that's not true, but it was here today. 
Sunny skies with a high near freezing, a nice break before we go back to more months of sub crazy cold. I was lucky and was able to spend the day working in the yard, cutting-splitting firewood and working on the basket for the roof of Tardis.
The basket/mini platform will be used to hold a couple of large, lightweight dry-bags. This will open up some space inside the camper, and more space is good.
The basket started the day as six foot sections of aluminum.
After some cutting and drilling.
All burnished and cleaned.
Mounted to the rack bars. (I mounted the platform bars under the rack bars, mostly because I like the way it looks. It also makes the platform slightly lower, which is good. And it makes a small lip that will aid in strapping down the dry bags.)
Hope to get it mounted on the roof before winter comes back. :elkgrin:
Sunny skies with a high near freezing, a nice break before we go back to more months of sub crazy cold. I was lucky and was able to spend the day working in the yard, cutting-splitting firewood and working on the basket for the roof of Tardis. The basket/mini platform will be used to hold a couple of large, lightweight dry-bags. This will open up some space inside the camper, and more space is good.
The basket started the day as six foot sections of aluminum.
After some cutting and drilling.
All burnished and cleaned.
Mounted to the rack bars. (I mounted the platform bars under the rack bars, mostly because I like the way it looks. It also makes the platform slightly lower, which is good. And it makes a small lip that will aid in strapping down the dry bags.)
Hope to get it mounted on the roof before winter comes back. :elkgrin:
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Here is the materials list for the rack basket.
- 1.5 x 3/16 aluminum bar, McMaster # 8975K55
- 1 1/8 aluminum U-bolt, McMaster # 3035T13
And the aluminum bars are ski3pin's inspired aluminum Yakima bars. Lightweight Load Bars
- 1.5 x 3/16 aluminum bar, McMaster # 8975K55
- 1 1/8 aluminum U-bolt, McMaster # 3035T13
And the aluminum bars are ski3pin's inspired aluminum Yakima bars. Lightweight Load Bars
DesertBoater
Adventurer
Just because I'm curious, and also am currently living in a very cold climate, what is your reasoning (there's always reasoning) behind removing the struts for the winter?
Cheers,
West
Walt Knapp
New member
Note that aluminum tube of the same dimensions as the steel Yakima tubes won't be near as structurally strong. You will have a much lower load limit for your bars. I'd expect that overloaded bars would bend down pressing into the roof, which would not be good.
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Yes, there is always a reason. Although sometimes more complicated than others. I was waiting to post about this until I found a solution, but here is the problem.
(First, a note about the struts mounted to the exterior of the camper. FWC feels very strongly that this is not the way to do it. In fact, I read that doing the exterior strut mount will void the warranty.)
After installing the lifting struts in the interior of the camper I started to notice that they were spreading the frame of the camper where the base of the struts are mounted. I was very careful with the installation of the struts, being aware of the pushing force they would have when the roof is down. I studied photos of factory installed struts and felt confident that my installation was equally if not more solid and force distributing. Needless to say I was a bit distressed when I noticed that the struts were warping the top of the frame. I figured that the factory must build the frame differently on campers that are ordered with lifting struts, but I found this not to be the case, so I am not sure why I am having this problem. Also, the factory uses up to 80lb struts and mine are 50lb, so I am not "over" on the strut pressure.
So I took the struts off for the winter while I figure a solution.
The struts are mounted as close to frame reinforcement as possible, so simply moving the mount does not look like it will help. At this point I am thinking I will just mount them to the bed slide frame. Not ideal, as I will need to remove the struts to slide the bed out, but I do have the marine quick release hardware so that will help. Of-course I could pull out the interior and weld in some reinforcement, but that is not happening at this point.
That is the complicated answer to a simple question.
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Overland Hadley
on a journey
Yes. I did some testing of the load bearing strength of the thin wall aluminum tubing before I felt comfortable using it for the roof rack. Naturally it is not as strong as steel bars, but I am aware of this and am loading them accordingly. Hopefully my testing was thorough enough as a broken bar and the resulting hole in the roof would not be good.
Nathan
I wanted to thank you again for the ideas. I purchased a Hawk shell from four wheel and have been using some of your and others ideas. You doing the leg work helps others like me come up with a pretty good arrangement. My catalytic heater doesn't seem to want to work very well at 10,000 feet but maybe nothing does using propane. Anyway thanks again.
I wanted to thank you again for the ideas. I purchased a Hawk shell from four wheel and have been using some of your and others ideas. You doing the leg work helps others like me come up with a pretty good arrangement. My catalytic heater doesn't seem to want to work very well at 10,000 feet but maybe nothing does using propane. Anyway thanks again.
DesertBoater
Adventurer
Curious...I'd wonder why exactly FWC is against mounting the struts on the outside if you're getting those kinds of results (bowing frame, etc) on the inside. I just went outside to look at mine (struts on the outside) and can't see any such issues. I have noticed that when I have gear in my thule box as well as a couple of whitewater kayaks strapped to the bars, there is some bowing of the roof between the front and rear end, however you'd probably get that even if there weren't struts as that's where the support for the entire roof is (ie the lift panels inside the camper).
It would be yet another thing to remove when you were setting up camp, but you could continue using the same lower end mounting setup for your struts and fabricating a system to hold the sides of your camper together while the top is down/struts are installed. It could be as simple as a cam strap or self-camming rope system (even a truckers hitch would work) or you could get shiny with it and create a cable/turnbuckle arrangement. Just a thought.
Cheers,
West
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Glad my info could be of help.
Are you using a Wave or Buddy catalytic heater? I know the buddy heaters do not work well at elevation, but I think the Wave works better.
Overland Hadley
on a journey
That is a fantastic idea! Wire rope would be best as it would have no stretch, and we are only talking about a little deflection. Great idea West, thanks! Time to order some SS wire rope and do some rigging....
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Speaker shelf now in progress....
RickNV
Observer
This Dewalt Toughsystem with different size Pelican style boxes would be a nice organizational solution - i watched a video on YouTube that showed how the handles flip up and attach to the rail of the available hand truck and found this picture that looks to be some of the cases mounted to the wall of a van- the boxes also feature tabs that allow the boxes to be locked together when stacked so it would be possible to just attach one to the floor and all the boxes you attach would be secure- I just thought this would be interesting for people thinking of a shell model type setup....