RLD designs pic request

[salvino]

I might be interested depending on my delivery. I should have it by end of week.

Let me know, no hurry.

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[Blade1668]

By chance does anyone know how much space between the hard top window and topper window? I'm thinking about a seal between the sliding windows... A trick from the 70s I remember some had placed a bicycle or m.c. tube there. Then put a few psi of air in it. gap sealed from dust, dirt and rain plus slight bit of air "AC/ heat) from cab. Oh "the good old days" being a kid riding in bed of trucks when traveling.

 

[Mauga 5 Offroad]

I mounted the iKamper Skycamp onto the Canopy without using the load bars or a rack. This method does require a few new holes in the tent bottom, so do so at your own risk . Here's how I did it.

First, I removed the canopy mounting point plugs and put them away. There are 6 on the outer ribs of the canopy.

Then I had a couple friends help lift the tent onto the canopy. The struts of the tent fit between the ribs of the canopy. However, the front of the tent will need to be pushed about a quarter inch to the drivers side to allow the drivers side strut (on the tent) to not rest on the canopy vent on top (while the tent is on, the vent will remain closed). This allowed the bottom of the tent to sit flush with the canopy ribs.

Once I was comfortable with the tent placement, I traced out the mounting holes onto the tent from inside the canopy. With friends, I took the tent down again to drill the holes.

To prepare for drilling, I opened the tent, removed the "mattress", and propped the tent on it's side to get access to the bottom with a drill.

After drilling the holes, the tent was closed, moved back up, holes lined up, then opened again. A lighter friend went inside carefully to slide 6 bolts with washers into the new holes, and helped secure them while I tightened a locking nut and washer onto the bottom. Retrospectively I could've drilled the holes while the tent was on top.

As you can see below, the struts are secured in a similar fashion, just spaced apart a little further and with larger washers than the ones I used. To clarify, the smaller washers you see are the bolts I installed.

I have 2" fender washers coming from amazon in a week or so to replace the ones I used. Will help me feel a little better about spreading that tension out a tiny bit more. In the future I could use a thin 2" wide metal bar to span all three bolts to act as one large support/washer, although probably overkill.

Here you can see some dimpling of the flooring from the bolts, don't torque down too much. iKampers own bolts have some slight dimpling as well, so it's probably fine. To be clear iKampers are the hex bolts, mine are the button-head. Let me know if you think I should do the support bar idea, or if the 2" washers coming should be fine.

Now the front of the tent rested just about an 8th of an inch above the back of the cab, so I ordered some foam tape, cut 10 inches, and stuck it on. This foam tape does squeak on the cab, in the future I might add some felt tape between to help with that.

That's it. Plenty of great benefits from installing it this way.
- secured in 6 spots as opposed to four with the load bars or a rack
- shaves 2.5" off the total vehicle height and slightly lowers center of gravity
- arguably easier to remove, nuts are very easily accessed from in the cab as opposed to reaching between the canopy and bars
- a lot harder to steal, the nuts are only accessible from inside the canopy, which locks
- personally I think it looks better as opposed to up on the bars or rack
- if iKamper forgot to send your 90 dollar brackets, and they ignore your emails for months, you don't need em anyways...

Hope this helps someone someday

 

[johng]

Any bed flex at all and you have a damaged roof.

 

[Mauga 5 Offroad]

Any bed flex at all and you have a damaged roof.

I didn't think the flex would be so much honestly. I could remove the factory struts from the tent and install my own stiffeners, just cut 10 or 15 inches short of the front. But honestly those struts/stiffeners are probably obsolete considering a majority of the tent sits on the three ribs of the canopy

 

[johng]

I've backed up a washboard road once and the wheel hop made the top edge of the bed dent my cab, at roof level sticking toward the front the amount of movement would almost be double.

 

[TomH]

Any bed flex at all and you have a damaged roof.

I agree with this statement. I would want about three inches of gap between the roof and whatever is extended over it.

 

[bainbridge-xj]

Has anyone added tint to the RLD windows? I like the side/rear windows but in the interests of theft deterrence, ideally no one could see into the back of the truck.

 

[LostWoods]

Just sheet vinyl to black it out. If you order ahead of time and aren't buying an in-transit cap, you can order it without the rear window for $100 I think. Definitely would have done that myself had I not needed it by a certain date.

 

[MotoBrad]

Has anyone else had issues with least windows? My seals catch water and it comes inside bothe the front and tailgate windows, making little puddles. And the I get condensation on the inside of the canopy and difficulty seeing out my windows.

I'm not impressed with the idea of having to silicon a brand new canopy...

 

[LostWoods]

Has anyone else had issues with least windows? My seals catch water and it comes inside bothe the front and tailgate windows, making little puddles. And the I get condensation on the inside of the canopy and difficulty seeing out my windows.

I'm not impressed with the idea of having to silicon a brand new canopy...

Not with leaking but I'm not particular happy with the fit... the seal around my windows isn't flat to the canopy but it is sealed as far as I can tell.

 

[Blade1668]

Has anyone added tint to the RLD windows? I like the side/rear windows but in the interests of theft deterrence, ideally no one could see into the back of the truck.

Well I just got mine and I will be checking on having windows tinted and vinyl wrap on doors today.

 

[bainbridge-xj]

Well I just got mine and I will be checking on having windows tinted and vinyl wrap on doors today.

I decided to go ahead and get the side and rear windows tinted. I can circulate some pictures once that is done.

 

[Blade1668]

I talked with a shop near me about doing a wrap, his advice was to get them painted. How ever if anyone is interested in a vinyl wrap you should expect to pay minimum of $15 per sq ft. if you get a offer for less check quality of vinyl and experience of the people doing the job.

 

[LostWoods]

It's hard to wrap properly with the textured finish. I wanted to wrap my doors white to match the truck but have decided against it because dust will inevitably work its way under and the durability just isn't going to be there.

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