Power Roof Rack; Has Anyone Tried This Yet?

[Dandil]

A Roof Rack is the one weak area for FWC. There is no real good solution to being able to carry stuff with a FWC because you have to be able to raise the roof to use your camper. It make s it difficult to accomidate having kayaks, solar panels, traction matts or a small rack to carry misc. Just adding a couple if things on the roof makes it impossible to raise the FWC roof unless you unpack everything first. I travel with our Lab and carry a 50 LB bag of dog food in a dry bag, traction matts, two fold up chairs, solar panel and have to leave the kayaks behind. I recently thought of a possible idea for a power roof rack and was wondering if anyone has tried this. Mount four electric jack stands on a FWC up side down so the feet of the stands are pointing up. You could build an aluminum rack that mounts on the feet of the jack stands that are now pointing up. Rather than the power jack stands raising the camper, they would raise the roof rack...making room to now raise the FWC roof to make camp for the night or to just stop for a mid day break. You wouldn't have to unpack the roof to raise the FWC roof. This would leave the FWC roof free of any cargo and would be light to lift by hand with little effort. When ready to hit the road just drop the FWC roof and then lower the roof rack. Any thoughts?

 

[Bigskyxj]

Sounds like a cool idea. Do it and take a lot of pictures

 

[Vic Harder]

why not just use the electric jacks to raise the roof, instead of a whole 'nohter rack?

 

[geologyjohn]

After seeing those "Art Cars" that folks build for Burning Man, I would think that your idea would be pretty easy to fabricate.
I'd want to see the build use smaller diameter, lighter weight jack stands used for this application. It would save weight over those heavy jacks most of us already have. One problem I see (at least for some of us) is that I'd be worried about snagging one of the jacks on branches while four wheeling on high desert dirt roads. I've already got enough "desert pinstripes on the sides of my rig, as well as bent roof rake bars, to know that it would happen to me.
Hope you build it and post photos.
john

 

[Taku]

Sounds like a good idea actually. Here is something that I was thinking about for loading boats: https://boatloader.com/

But being able to lift a rack with panels and a rocket box on it sounds like a much better idea. Or Vic's thought on lifting the whole top with the regular rack. Looking forward to the mod!

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

An interesting (and expensive) idea, but you would have to figure out how to keep water from getting into the upside down jacks and ruining them. The easy way to deal with a loaded roof is to get a speaker lift and use it to raise things from inside the camper. There are several threads on it here in the forum.

 

[ntsqd]

What you're looking for are called "Linear Actuators" and can be found in both industrial automation quality and in hobby quality, and in AC or DC. One potential source for them is the salvage yard that has late model SUV's & hatch-backs in it because some of these have one that operates the automatic rear gate/door. Their wiring may be a bit more of a challenge than a universal actuator (grab their wiring pigtail & plug!), but the cost should be lower than even a hobby grade unit.

Those old enough to remember ZZ-Top's "Cadzilla" project car might recall that their builder used linear actuators to move the seat for the rear suspension springs, thus allowing a variable ride height.

Or buy a Hallmark, Outfitter, or Alaskan that already has a power roof lift.

 

[DavidGraves]

Howdy

An electric lift is a nice "project" to consider.

The roof will only hold a certain load.....if you cannot lift it manually you may be overloading the aluminum roof framing.

The jack brackets also have a load limit.

The lifting gizmo would weight quite a bit itself.

It would be interesting to see how much weight the roof will hold.....Frank Lloyd Wright did this for architectural columns.....

Make sure to remember the dynamic loading of road ( or off road ) travel when you load all that stuff on your roof.

Happy T day

David Graves

 

[longhorn1]

Get a small off-road trailer and add bike rack and kayak carriers to the top. We love our Trekmate.
Their website is being worked on but you can go to their Facebook site.