Hard sided pop top - how would you do it?

[pods8]

ntsqd, The bimobil type design might cater to your ideas better... hmmm more food for thought.
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.bimobil.com/website/wechselvorrichtung/start_d.php&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiRX2LoNQ6mJyys85Tv5q85_nMc_A

 

[ntsqd]

Interesting, The owner of Ranch Hand bumpers & I had such a conversation about 7 years ago. He wanted to build a flat bed with modular sides, a set of std bedsides, and a set of tool box bedsides so that a guy could have 3 different beds depending on what he needed at the moment. The problem was the expense of the equipment needed to make the swaps. Ends up making for a very expensive system.

 

[pods8]

What I'm wondering in my head right now is if I could build a little flatbed just over the frame rails and relatively flat to them out of steel like the bimobil deal and then adapt a mount system to my current truck bed and a camper as well. I really don't need a flatbed for normal use and would be fine with my truck bed.

For the price of a flatbed I'm sure this could be done. It would open up some interesting camper possibilities for extra storage. However it would require more framework consideration for the camper base since its not sitting on a full flatbed. Also there is the removed bed to deal with in terms of storage when the camper is on.


Edit: Scratch that, the stock bed is actually up a few inches (and there are things that need to be cleared in that space as well) so it wouldn't work out very easily without having the height of the stock bed raised when it was put back on.

 

[ntsqd]

Go at it from the other end. Instead of adding something to mount to, make the existing mounts easy to QD. Then build the camper box assembly use the same mounts as the original bed.

 

[DirtyDog]

I think Home Skillets solution is the best I have seen. It requires the camper be a bit taller when the top is down (maybe 10 inches taller? not sure I'll have to measure that when i see him), but it doesn't seem excessively tall to me.

 

[pods8]

I seriously considered going that route with mine but couldn't over come my apprehension for the aesthetics and what I figured would be even more drag aerodynamically for the height I would have needed. I wanted 24" minimum of head room over the bed (more would be better) otherwise it just feels too cramped so combining that with 4" mattress, 3" for under bed storage (I think this will be highly valuable in camper organization), and the thickness of the actual sandwich core I was going to end up close to 20" thick for the cabover. A FWC is ~7" comparatively. I decided to pass and will be doing alaskan style folding walls in the cabover, my down cabover thickness should be ~13" and I'll probably have at least 26" of headroom.

Everything is a trade off, if you aren't doing under the bed storage and/or don't mind less headroom or don't mind the thickness I think skillet's route is definitely easier and more fool proof. We'll see how mine pans out...

 

[Phird05]

I wouldn't trade my under the bed storage for anything. It has proven to be one of the most important storage compartments for me. Being roughly 5-6 inches deep, it is amazing how much I can store in there. I like that I can store long objects in it with ease i.e. fly rod cases, boat nets, shotgun cases, oar blades in addition an endless amount of soft goods etc. What I have also found in my part of the world, when camping in cold temperatures, I can fill the under bed storage with soft goods and create a great insulating barrier. That coupled with a four inch mattress, I have no problems sleeping comfortably in cold weather.

Good Camping,

Paul