M-416 to Date.

[Fred]

Got the roof top tent today. It's a Tepui.

I had it set up, didn't take any pictures. I have it mounted to open over the side, but I an going to change it to open over the back. It has an 8X8 room that attaches, and the back zips out, so that will give access to the trailer, and I can set up the kitchen in it. It's only about 6 feet to the bottom of the tent.

I recall a discussion on flex. Even with a spring over, there is not much flex because the hitch rotates.

I also made a cover for it. Decided you guys were right about dust, etc.

 

[DrMoab]

I'll make a suggestion. You can take it or leave it.

My tent opens on the side and we had our kitchen set up to go under it. It lasted one night and for the next week our tent smelled like old grease from cooking.

Now we have it set up on the other side with nothing over it. I plan on buying an awning when my money tree starts to produce.

What is the box you have mounted to the fender on the right front?

 

[Fred]

That's a very good point.

It's an s-10 fenderwall box. I have one on the other side. Good for stuff I want to get to without messing with the trailer. Not to mention they were cheap. Two for $50. When the trailer is packed it's pretty buttoned up. The tailgate comes off easily, not so much the rest of it.

I still need to work on the fenders, make a mount for the propane tank, and then all the cool stuff like a water system, and electrical system. I bought a solar panel kit, just the cells and leads. I have to solder them all together and make a panel. That might take all winter.

 

[GSequoia]

More info on the DIY Solar system?

 

[Fred]

Amazon. It's just the cells with leads that I have to solder. Bunch of videos on U-tube.

 

[GSequoia]

Way too vague.

I expect a full write up with twenty seven 8x10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph under each one describing it.

 

[karstic]

Way too vague.

I expect a full write up with twenty seven 8x10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph under each one describing it.

Jerk

 

[kndrewa]

Looks Good!

 

[Fred]

Okay, the first step twoward building a solar panel:

http://www.amazon.com/Prime-Solar-C...F8&qid=1342298900&sr=8-1&keywords=solar+cells

 

[Fred]

Set up in the wilds of downtown Colorado Springs:

This is where I started from:

The mounting rails need to be 2" higher. My project for the fall. While I can and do design and build projects at work according to a plan and specifications, my hobby stuff tends to evolve organically. The uprights were installed with the idea of a mount for a tent that could be raised and lowered. Then I discovered that while the nominal dimensions quote for the square tube would allow a 1.25" square tube to be inserted into a 1.5" square tube, reality turned out differently. So then, I went through a bunch of different iterations on the theme, and finally rooftop tents became reasonable to buy and I ended up where I am. It's a good thing I ended up putting on a new axle and doing a spring over, otherwise it would really be too low.

 

[OverlandZJ]

Looking good Fred!

 

[Fred]

Here it is set up on a, wait for it!, four wheeling trip!! The camp in Buena Vista where we had COFest.

The big dog was perfectly happen to stay in the lower level of the Hilton, as it was known, along with the kid.

You'll notice the added line on the front awning. It was facing directly into the direction storms came over the mountains so the entire rain fly would balloon up. One of the things I plan on mentioning to the seller. Another thing is that both the front door under that awning, as the seller calls it, and the back door on the annex, that opened into the trailer, zip up down from the top. This means that the front window has to be closed if any weather is coming from that direction. It also means that if the back door to the annex is open to the trailer, the entire area underneath the trailer is open. I hung the tailgate from the floor to close it off a little, but if both doors zipped from the top down it would be better.

It was quite comfy and dry, even with the Mt. thunderstorms we had. The wife even liked it. You can see how the base of the annex was spread out because the tent isn't mounted high enough. This does cause an issue with the zipped on floor of the annex being on the ground and allowing leakage.

 

[Fred]

One of the issues I had was that the support legs I added front and rear are too short after the spring over lift. I brought along wood blocks to accomdate this, but I wanted a better solution. I looked for longer legs, but there aren't too many out there. I saw another build where a hitch tube was added to the rear of the trailer, and that made me think. I looked at hitch tubes, but my welder (90 amp HF) can't handle that thick of metal, not too mention I've been unemployed for too long, and I shouldn't spend money I don't have to. I started looking at the metal I had around, and realized that I had more than enough 1 1/2" and 1 1/4" square tube sitting around. The 1.25" will fit inside the 1.5" with some work, so I did this:

leveled out and set up.

The front mechanism:

Leg folded:

Removed with the electric height adjuster on it:

The rear leg:

Removed:

It still needs wheel chocks to hold it still, but it's not too bad. If I can, I think I'll buy brakes to add to the axle if it seems feasible to lock them when parked. The M-416 axle allows that, but I'm not sure it can be done with electric brakes.

I need to add another set of rails to the current ones that are 6-7" higher than the current rails so the annex will fit correctly. Seems like that will make the over height rather tall, maybe too tall?