Homemade Roof Top Tent

[gobells12785]

so what was the total amount of $$$ spent and hours put into it?

[fishsticks]

so what was the total amount of $$$ spent and hours put into it?

I would guess somewhere between "too much" and "holy shit".

I think JD already said he might have bought a premade for cheaper.

[navigator]

yeah, reading through the thread he noted something about spending $650 and he still had what appeared to be a good bit more work to do.

[The Roadie]

I looked for a couple of years, and jumped instantly on mine that was only used a few times, sold by a relatively local ExPo member for right around $1000. Any that show up for a good price are snapped up instantly, so you have to be ready. And a good price is like 70-80% of as-new price. The only think I think I've seen that holds its value so well is a fridge like the Engel. I considered selling mine when I was out of work, it was such a liquid asset. I ended up not being quite desperate enough.

Best place to look IMO is the ExPo classifieds.

[navigator]

I see them every now and then on CL but not often.
If you aren't familiar, searchtempest will let you search all the CL within a certain number of miles from your zip code. It is nice when you are searching for a specific item like "trailblazer 4X4 V8 EXT"

[Skull]

Hi there.
I'm from Poland and i'm buliding roof tent.
If you are interested visit my fb site:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 050&type=3
I'm trying make something like maggiolina air top.
Big apologize for my english ;]

[Trail X]

Very cool Mat. That looks like a big job. I'm looking forward to seeing all of your progress.

[Hillbillybonez]

now thats a neat idea

[Trail X]

Finally got the hoist up in the garage and the rtt off. Seems to work great so far. Allows me to even store the half rack on top if the rtt.

Annoying part is that I have to remove the cover and ladder to fit the truck w/ rtt into the garage. I do need to get more rope though... I'd like to be able to lower the tent all the way to the ground if needed.

As a follow up, since I moved, my new garage door is a bit lower than my last place. I can no longer fit into the garage with the roof top tent on top of the vehicle. I am still storing the behemoth in the ceiling of the garage with the same hoist as before though, because its too big to store anywhere else.

So instead of driving under the hoist, lowering it down on the truck, and driving away, I had been requiring a second (or sometimes a third) hand to manually carry the tent out of the garage, and then lift the tent into place on top of the truck. It sucked.

So in my search to ever improve efficiency, I made a crane that mounts into the rear hitch. It has two modes, first is a 'flat stick' mode, where it can pick up the tent off of a set of saw horses after being dropped from the ceiling and then 'caddy' it out of the garage. This mode is seen below:





Then, the tent is set down on top of saw horses again, and the crane is configured into the high angle "install" mode. The angled gusset under the boom is pinned into the higher position, and the tent is then hoisted off of the saw horses. A pin is pulled at the base of the crane that prevents it from rotating on its hinges, and the tent can then be pushed 180 degrees around over the truck roof.



The tent is then lowered down onto the studs in the roof rack and fastened down. Its not the fastest process or most efficient, but it can be done entirely by one man, so that in-itself is worth it for the self-sufficiency.

[Chango]

That's cool James...how did you do the pivot point?

[Trail X]

All of the pivots use a 5/8" hitch pin and a combination of holes drilled in the 2X2 tube and lasered plates of various shapes.

[TBYODA]

Very cool, now you got a reason to add a back up camera with your slate and some servos to the hoist and control it from inside the TB.

[Grimor]

Since I saw your build I started looking for some used/cheap off the shelf tents like this. I had found one for $600 but at the time had closer to $6. At some point I may decide to go the build my own route, your build thread will definitely help at that point. Great job

[Trail X]

Don't expect it to be cheaper than just buying one, because from what I found, it is not, and requires a lot of time.

[ErikSS]

I really like the hoist James. Way to think outside the box!

[redradier81]

one question i have searched all over and i cannot find what rack to use, i have a 2015 z71 silverado crew cab and i would like a non warranty voiding solution. Any ideas

[Trail X]

I assume you are mounting over your bed area? If not, does the silverado have anything to mount to on the cab roof?

What warranty area are you concerned with voiding?

[redradier81]

I would like to mount it over the cab actually, but as a back up where would I find a bed rack

[Trail X]

Darin, you're probably on the wrong site for Silverado related information, we really only know anything about Trailblazers. I'd start by doing a google search for 2015 silverado bed rack.

[redradier81]

I did there is more information and I'm using the design of your tent as well and the Silverado forums are crap just a bunch of //// ford and //// Chevy discussions lol u guys are cool and talk about off roading!!!