Building A 4x4 Truck Camper | DIY Hard Side Pop-Up
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- Опубликовано: 11 окт 2024
- I finished building the hard side pop-up for my truck camper. The pop-up is built of DIY composite panels and mounted to the camper with 5 drawer slides. Gas struts (AKA lift supports or air struts or gas springs) are employed to help lift the contraption. This was a big step in my camper project and I'm excited to be past it.
Materials Used In This Video:
3M VHB Tape: https: //amzn.to/3moU7Ao
Trim Lok Foam Rubber Seal: amzn.to/3EVLoMB
Loctite Construction Adhesive: amzn.to/3mmjL8Q
Total Boat Pour Foam: amzn.to/3J94TDQ
Toggle Compression Latches: amzn.to/3IQZCzv
All Fiberglass/Epoxy: Raka.com
Drawer (pop-up) Slides: amzn.to/3Yo7iPq
Flat Head Screws: amzn.to/3SRlA9Y
Pancake Head Screws: www.midmichiganmetalsales.com
Gas Struts and Mounts: www.liftsuppor...
Tools Used In This Video
Makita Impact Driver: amzn.to/41HdXXK
Kreg Pocket Hole Jig: amzn.to/41VTM8L
Long Bar clamps: amzn.to/3msfcd1
Mid size Bar Clamps: amzn.to/3YdxdJu
Please join us on our adventure by subscribing to our channel, and support our project on Patreon: / thetravelingtogetherjo...
Our website has an interactive Map of our route: www.thetravelingtogetherjournal.com
Social Media is FUN!:
Instagram: @the_traveling_together_journal
Facebook: thetravelingtogetherjournal/
Never seen a Pop Up before on a camper thats AWESOME!!👍
Its a real pleasure to see this outstanding camper coming to completion.
Your meticulously precise attention to detail and superb craftsmanship are evident wherever one's eye rests.
This will be one of the strongest and lightest pop top campers, reinforced and sealed on every surface, providing years and countless kilometres of comfort wherever you park.
This is one of the best Travel Cabin's I have ever seen, thank you for sharing your phenomenal build.
Wow, thanks for all the kind and encouraging words Felix!
Hi Matt - great idea for the guides and seal system. If you are planning to install a ventilation fan suggest you use a reversible model. Running it with the windows and doors closed drawing air in will pressurize the interior slightly to aid lifting the top. Running it “out” will help draw the top down.
interesting idea
Very cool. I'm glad to see this project coming together and will love to see you two back on the road.
Thanks Walter. We're looking forward to getting back on the road too
Great thinking on using the drawer slides for the pop up top as guides.👍😎
Thanks Jack. It's working well so far. The whole thing is an experiment of course, so we'll just have to see how well it holds up once I finally get to start torture testing.
Really impressive work!! So many creative ideas to make it work.
Making me think back to when I watched your first Fiberglass video!! Looks awesome, a new era for sure
Oh man... that feels so long ago.
Thanks for watching
Dude, you’re killing it! Absolutely love your build!
Very clever use of drawer sliders, i love it. Gas struts are a super idea too, much easier to fit than a cable/pulley/hoist system.
oh yeah, I wasn't about to figure out a cable-pully-hoist system 😬
I’ve watched this build probably three times every time I’m amazed how you figured that out but what you’ve done is something I want to do I just haven’t figured out that one thing until now. Thank you so much for sharing. God bless you and yours.
glad to hear you found it helpful. thanks for watching and good luck on your project
love the hand made quality, ingenuity, and originality.
Incredible!! Wow, thank you for sharing all the details!
So great to see yall are doing ok and great to see the camper take shape
Great!!! Glad to see a update on the progress!! Thanks for sharing.
Just started seeing your trips from 3 years ago. Nice to see the camper being upgraded, although you guys deserve a nice new Tacoma.
Amazing design, planning, and workmanship Matt ! Looking forward to seeing the next phase!!
Thanks Mike
I was planning on a very similar seal on a pop-up design i was considering and it's very encouraging / inspiring to see somebody actually pull it off so well with common hardware. I hope you're stoked and proud of the build.
Thanks Bernie. I'm feeling pretty good about it. Good luck on your build!
Awesome update. Indefinitely admire hard sided pop-up campers. Your camper is awesome!
Glad to see your progress! Well engineered and thought-out design and process. Looking forward to see the completed product. 👍
Bruh it’s soo good to see you again. Life happens I totally get it. Missed y’all!
Nearly Adventure Time again looking good
So tempting to rush things to get it useable 🤪
Now I gotta few ideas floatin around, thanks for the inspiration brother
Great job so far.
Ingenious craftsmanship with bucu talent. Very impressive sir....
Thank You
Really impressed with the draw slide idea.
thanks luke
Sweet set up..excited to see the end result, not mention the coming adventures
Very clever. I've been pondering converting an old motorcycle trailer to a hard shell pop-up square drop. Your designs inspire me.
That sounds like a cool project
You guys create my dreams. I love every bit of this and every other video. Party on!
Impressive! That’s some serious engineering. Looking forward to the finished product, best wishes.
Just an amazing job of design and construction. Thank you so much for the video.
Good to see an update on the build, its looking killer!
I like this a lot, thanks for sharing!
Fantastic idea on that top!
Cool Stuff Matt. I am very keen to see how the whole structure holds up in a real world off road situation. Quite a heavy load on top. Enjoyed every bit of the video. Good luck in completing the project, can't wait to see in real world.
Thanks. I'm interested to see how it holds up as well. If there is one thing im good at its torture testing all my gear 😅
Nice job, your effort shows.
Impressive young man
Hola Matt, nice to see you again. Doing a great job. Keep up. Margarita y Luis.
Excelente, un trabajo sencillo pero muy bueno y efectivo.
Los felicito, es una muy buena forma de expansión.
Saludos desde Cali Colombia 🇨🇴
Thank you Robinson
Thanks for the video , a was searching that kind of pop up roof a long time , I like the way you build it , ,I want to do about the same on a cargo van
Sounds like a cool project
That's insane, great Job Matt
Ohhhh definitely going to do this on my camper!
Nice. Good luck on your project
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal Thank you😁
This looks awesome! Been following the channel a few years now and have enjoyed the different setups you've made
Wow, nice job. Very slick.
very good your videos. I'm building a camper and the information is very important.
This is friggin awesome
Been thinking about a similar design for some time. Thanks for sharing your build!
Go for it!
Hey Matt, thank you very much for all the videos and detail you go into, it's really helpful. It's surprising how little info is out there about diy hard side pop up truck campers so that makes your videos even more valuable. Keep at it mate, you've got this 🤙
Glad you like them!
Thank you so much for sharing your build. It's a great concept and one I've not seen done by an individual builder before. I'm looking forward to seeing more details as you progress. Thank again!
Very welcome
So impressive!
That's a lotta work!
Yes it was!
Holy cow welcome back
Love this. I was just conjuring up an idea like this, I might attempt to design and build a folding wall design like those instacrates
That sounds like a creative project. Good luck!
Hey, great video! Interesting build & well explained!
Gotta subscribe to see this come to fruition. Very cool.
welcome aboard
thats awsome good job with the build
Well done, Matt. It's really turning out great!
Sweet build so far!! I've been wanting to do something VERY similar!!
Nice work. I am an old fan from the start of your Journal. Happy to come back and find this. I have my own project, similar idea, but very different execution. I really like your set up. Great to see different ways to solve the same puzzle.
For sure. The creativity is the best part of DIY builds!
Amazing job
Great work!
Bad ass , you rock bro 😎 👏👏👏👏
Yes great job
PERFECT!👍
Great work
Very impressive nice job!!
very good progress!
Nice job , thanks to sharing
Insane !! Nice work !!
Great video thanks for the lessons
Brilliant!
looking good
Excellent!
So dope man!
Super cool!
looks great
Nice Job !!
Hi Matt i guess you've never built one of these before ? but i take my Hat off to you mate its Bloody Awesome and i like how you have glassed everything in an attempt to keep water out you have inspired me to build my own now 😁😁🤘
my 1st time doing something like this.
Good luck on your project and have fun!
Cool
That really a hard part
Maybe a second D seal on top of the body's aluminum cap, so it seals when lowered?
I'm still considering it... Could always use more seals to try to keep that Baja silt at bay.
For now, I am adding a seal around the bottom of the aluminum on the pop-up. It will provide a seal and a bit of cushion to sit on while it is clamped down.
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal Makes sense. Looking great!
amazing
Look'in Good...
😁👍
1st time watcher, new subscriber!
Great information! You've answered/given me ideas on how to repair my Jayco Sportster 7. Absolutely love the drawer rail idea, the handles to pull the roof down, and the latches on the inside. Why did you place the forward struts where you did again? I missed that part even watching it again.
Great video!
Welcome aboard!
I put the front struts where I did because that was as far forward as I could put them without encroaching on the width of the queen mattress. In hindsight this didn't work as well as I thought it would. I think mounting the struts all the way forward and using less forceful struts in the front would have made for smoother motion in the pop-up. Currently it wants to teeter-totter a bit with the struts as a pivot point when lowering the pop-up.
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal yes, I saw the teeter tottering in your video. Interesting fix using straps. Thanks!
Nice!
I have a similar idea but using foam and poor man's fiberglass. Only I want it on top of a SUV. Then the rear section would have a stand-up shower.
Seems feasible. I've seen some cool diy suv or van pop-ups, but never a hard sided one. Good luck on the project
yey that's great ! 😃
Drawer slides. How simple. Why hasn't anyone done this before?
keep it simple 👍
I like the idea of the design. But why not use actuators to raise the roof by just one push of a button? Just a suggestion.
I looked into them a while back and was seeing reports from other DIY builders that were having trouble getting all of the actuators to raise and lower at the same rate, particularly if their battery bank was running low. It seems like the actuators are getting more popular now, so I'm guessing that new products or new knowledge has become readily available to the DIY community to solve this, but I had already started building the camper with this mechanism in mined.
Yoink! Looks like an idea worth stealing!
good luck on your project
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal Thanks!
This is great. I wonder of the necessity of glassing the inner surfaces. I get glassing the inner and outer seams and the exterior surfaces but the inner ceiling? Would love to know if I am missing something in dealing with the importance of glassing both.
Also, you should coat your wood with resin then set your glass. The glass will wick the resin and leave a perfectly filled weave with no resin pooling.
Is it necessary? Probably not 🤷♂️
I'm no engineer, but I'll try to explain my thinking.
If you think of the roof/ceiling as a composite panel that is 1 inch thick and spans an area over 6 feet wide and 10 feet long, I'm asking it to have quite a bit of strength and rigidity for its thickness. Especially since it is a pop-up, so it doesn't have the advantage of being a complete box.
Now if you think about applying a force to the ceiling (pushing the pop-up into the up position) most of this force is exerted on the upper most and lower most portions of the panel and less force is exerted on the core of the panel. In other words, the outer surface of the ceiling and roof take the most force while the inner foam core is relatively less stressed. By glassing the outer surface of each panel I am adding strength and rigidity where it is most valuable to the panel.
of course this extra glassing adds weight, cost, and effort to the project, so it's a tradeoff for sure. If I was looking at my design and trying to cut weight, I would rather use a thinner plywood, but I couldn't source anything lighter of a decent quality without ordering much more expensive marine grade ply. Everything is a trade off i suppose
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal Understood, a hollow aluminun tube retains it's strength because the outer portions of the tube provide the bulk of the strength. Same principle applies here. I will be copying lots of your design. You are correct, Okoume MP would be the best plywood for the project, for the ceiling if no where else. I think I will glass inner and outer of the ceiling, like you. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Looking forward to the next video.
@@brandonsummey2418 cool. glad I was able to articulate the concept well enough.
hoping to make some progress on the build this weekend and start editing the next video next week
Freak'n speechless, dude. The ingenuity of this build is something to behold. I can't remember if I've asked this before, but do you have an idea of how much this is going to weigh when it's all done?
Thanks Scott. I'll get back to you on the weight. I know I have a guesstimate written down somewhere.
My best guess was an empty weight of 1200 pounds.
I finally weighed it and go into detail in my latest video: ruclips.net/video/Bwbfe8-MII0/видео.html
so nice . would you be so kind to share the interior weight and the heights of the overlap parts of the camper. for the pop up roof to the joint wht height do you have ( mesured on the exterieur? thanks a lot
Hi. I'm not exactly sure what you are asking for, but I go into the weight and dimensions of the camper in this video. Hopefully I cover your question in there
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal the height of the overlaping section which goes up and down, the popup section height
@@user-xr9zd8hq6y 16.5 inches
I LIKE this construction! Did you by chance build boats and/or airplanes? It's that good.
Thanks
I've never built a boat or plane, but I've done a fair bit of repair work on boats and surfboards.
I loved this sistem!
Can I use The same on my motorhome?
I suppose you could figure it out
Super !!!!🧠👍🏻
So Awesome! Dang You Tube isnt sending me notifications when your new vids post even though Ive got the bell selected for all. What do you think that beaty of a camper weighs?
Dang RUclips needs to get their act together haha
My best guess is that the camper will weigh 1200 lbs dry once I finish the cabinetry. I'll have to try to find somewhere local I can weigh it once it's done.
I finally weighed it and go into detail in my latest video: ruclips.net/video/Bwbfe8-MII0/видео.html
I admire your skills and persistence here! I'm thinking of doing a similar project on my HMMWV, but with aluminum/aluminum, aluminum/wood, or aluminum/FRP composite panels. Lovin the home built panels, but one question...
3:13 ....what does this puppy end up weighing in total...and is the truck/tires rated for it at finish weight?
Thanks
Unfortunately I don't have a way of weighing the camper. I plan to weigh it at a truck scale eventually, but there aren't any publicly accessible ones near me.
My best guess is that the camper weighs 1200 pounds. The truck is rated for 1950 pounds of cargo weight capacity. Obviously getting rid of the bed and tailgate help out a bit, but I expect to be close to GVWR when I'm loaded up for a trip.
Incredible work--Congrats. Have you thought about using linear actuators to lift the topper? Subscribed!
I considered linear actuators, but thought this would be a simpler solution. I'm sure it could be done with actuators, but I have seen a number of DIY attempts go poorly as they had a lot of trouble syncing the actuators or having the actuators become un-synced if the batteries weren't fully charged.
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal What's interior height when the topper is down? Thank you!
@@ozmanfidaar6311 54.5 inches down
71 inches up
@@TheTravelingTogetherJournal Thanks
Hello Matt, How did you decide on what size Lift Supports you should use?
I wanted to mount the lift supports as vertical as possible, so I looked at the extended and collapsed lengths and tried to get the shortest ones possible that still extended long enough for my application.
Nobody can say that you half assed this build that's for sure.
full ass commitment on this one 😂