Smiling Camper

[John D]

I believe the roof of the camper was bent slightly by jacking when loading and unloading and the way to prevent it would have been to unlatch the roof during loading and unloading. Now this has occurred, what should I do about it? How do I straighten the roof, or should I leave it alone? It does not leak. _John D

 

[craig333]

I"m a fan of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought. Its not leaking now, fair chance that trying to straighten it might change that.

 

[RJones]

Agreed, I would leave the roof alone as the fix may develop leaks which are a much worse problem to have and fix.

 

[HERR42]

i have exactly the same issue!

dont tell anyone, but....

i tried to lift the roof....but i forgot one latch.

 

[DirtyDog]

i have exactly the same issue!

dont tell anyone, but....

i tried to lift the roof....but i forgot one latch.


Truth is, most of us here have done it

 

[MarkBC]

i have exactly the same issue!

dont tell anyone, but....

i tried to lift the roof....but i forgot one latch.

Truth is, most of us here have done it

I made a different kind of roof-raising mistake a couple weeks after I got mine.
It was winter, and a couple/few inches of snow had accumulated on the roof of the camper in my yard. For some reason I wanted to raise the roof (maybe I was going to camp in my yard) and it wouldn't budge -- man that snow is heavy! (I thought) So I pushed harder on the push-board that raises the front half...and then the lightweight sort-of-U-shaped metal bracket on the end-board started bending! OMG -- this sucks!
Then I realized: Hmmm....maybe the door needs to be open so that air can enter to occupy the new volume. DUH! I forgot about the power of air-pressure/vacuum...and I'm an engineer! Ahh, humility.

And then, just this summer, I was backing out of the camper-parking pad at my house -- oblivious with excitement to be heading out camping -- and I backed into a tree next to my driveway, hitting it with the back-right camper jack. I hit it hard -- hard enough that it bent the bracket. (yeah, I need to take off those jacks)
Thanks to the strength of the aluminum frame, no serious structural damage was done to the camper itself...probably would have been a different story with a wood-frame camper. ...but I felt pretty stupid as I drove off camping with my injured camper. More humility...

 

[Cort]

yep I have done the same thing.

 

[MarkBC]

Maybe we should start a "Stupid mistakes I've made with my camper" thread...where we could all post our confessions.

 

[banderswipe]

Hi Mark, I backed my raised Alaskan into the eaves trough on my garage. The Alaskan won, no damage. The eaves trough lost $ 250 dollars worth of damage,shush! don't tell my wife she hasn't noticed it yet.

Cheers,

Kevin.

 

[Darryla]

Hi John: A new top as I understand is about $1500.00. My thought is you call up Jeff at ATC and ask him some thoughts on possible attempts to straighten it, if he thinks its necessary before you do anything. I say ATC as I have one and I know them. But,you could probably ask Four Wheel also. Anyway, I know Jeff has straightened at least a few of them and any of his suggestions will help you. Because, with all of us getting close or having bent the top, once bent we will at some point want to fix it. A bit of free advice is worth it and I thinks its best you talk to the guys that really know how to work on these things.


Darryl

 

[MarkBC]

Hi Mark, I backed my raised Alaskan into the eaves trough on my garage. The Alaskan won, no damage. The eaves trough lost $ 250 dollars worth of damage,shush! don't tell my wife she hasn't noticed it yet.
Kevin.


Backed into the garage? Umm...yeah...I've also done that. But only did a little damage to the corner-trim of the garage siding.
But both times (the tree and the garage) it's only been because I wasn't paying attention...not because I can't backup.

 

[banderswipe]

Hi Mark, maybe we both need some advice from the worlds best backer upper,Stew

Cheers,

Kevin.

 

[craig333]

Pretty sure we've already had one (maybe more) threads on stupid things we've done to our campers. They're pretty tough. My rain gutters gave in long before the camper.

 

[pods8]

I'd just keep an eye out for leaks and roll with it.