VI_TJ
Member
2nd pic is minimal deployment. 3rd pic is the attached room. I have since moved the fenders up, removed the steps attached to the and painted them black. Currently getting ready to mount hi jack and some tools to the sides and a fire extinguisher
alpineovernappa
Member
Absolutely. At Guantanamo they used to drive detainees around in soft top wranglers with roof racks just to get them to talk, and boy does it work! In all seriousness, I would say a roof rack and soft top combo amplifies the noise by 5-10x. I ran this setup for 3 years and would have to wear earplugs on the highway.
alpineovernappa
Member
Absolutely. At Guantanamo they used to drive detainees around in soft top wranglers with roof racks just to get them to talk, and boy does it work! In all seriousness, I would say a roof rack and soft top combo amplifies the noise by 5-10x. I ran this setup for 3 years and would have to wear earplugs on the highway.
alpineovernappa
Member
As a backpacker I was anti RTT for years. I got a good deal on a used hard shell RTT (tepui Hybox) and decided to give it a shot. The RTT is great when you get into a site later in the day and don’t want to clear out sticks, rocks, thorny bits. You also don’t have to find a level spot to put it- if you have a jack you can level out your rig and you have a completely flat sleeping platform. This is especially nice if you’re just sleeping on the side of a fs/BLM road and not setting up a camp. There’s also no need to clean your tent. The bottom of a RTT never gets muddy or caked with insects. You also don’t have to stake it down, which is hugely helpful in the open desert and for beach camping. The experience of sleeping in a RTT in high winds is akin to a night on a sailboat with high swells, but it’ll stay put (I’ve only tested this up to ~75mph gusts). Its also faster to setup than a modern ground tent, but slower to put down and latch properly. The trade off is that you can leave all your bedding inside when you travel, which negates the time difference (90 seconds) for me. The quality of sleep in a RTT is also better IMO. I tend to sleep better in mine on the memory foam mattress it came with than I do in my real bed at home. All that being said, I still prefer a ground tent for base camping when I have to drive every day, but stay in the same place. I always bring mine no matter what. For short term trips (say a week or less) it’s really negligible. As I type this I’m 65 days into my current road trip exclusively sleeping in a RTT and the RTT has saved me many hours of campsite prep. They’re absurdly expensive (way more than they’re worth for occasional use), but do have their merits for certain types of campers. There are only 3 reasons I would not consider a RTT: cost (you can buy a whole running Jeep for less), center of gravity (I would not run off camber technical trails with mine up top- it’s 165lbs) and overall height (hugely restrictive in city and most residential garages). They’re a real pain to take off and store without a hoist or a friend. Do I feel like I need one? Absolutely not, but now that I’ve had months of camping in it in all 4 seasons I see a lot of value in them.
Boxed Wine is a GREAT method also… There’s a bag inside and after the wine is gone, you can inflate/deflate the bag to create your very own “ My Pillow”!!!
OZ Tent RV 1 or RV 3 is the way to go! 30 second tent.
I have got an RV 1 and an RV 3 expensive but they are for life!
An RV 1 fits on trailers and rooftops.
I think you call them Bakers tents in US?
https://www.bing.com/images/search?...D246BC6EC5AB95C2F009AE&thid=OIP.QDIhonifJpaOk
I have got an RV 1 and an RV 3 expensive but they are for life!
An RV 1 fits on trailers and rooftops.
I think you call them Bakers tents in US?
https://www.bing.com/images/search?...D246BC6EC5AB95C2F009AE&thid=OIP.QDIhonifJpaOk
This trailer is made from two tubs and has tailgate on each end, probably similar to what you're building. In this photo the trailer has a hinged lid that can support an RTT:
View attachment 156778
BTW having tailgates on both ends can be very handy
View attachment 156779
Usually I put the RTT on one of the Jeeps though. The tent is a Mombasa; the roof rack is an XJ Cherokee rack with brackets inside the hardtop to support the rack on the roll bar so mounting the tent is very easy and doesn't put any stress on the fiberglass hardtop.
View attachment 156780
I use a set of Surco XJ Cherokee rack channel adapters to mount the crossbars that came with the RTT to the Cherokee rack channels:
View attachment 156781
View attachment 156782
Do you have a write up on how you did this or know what brackets I can use to do this? I want to do the exact same where I get an XJ rack and support it from the roll bar.
I designed and built a custom set of brackets that attach to existing bolt holes in the roll bars and go up to the roof. The XJ Cherokee rack rails bolt through the roof to the top of the brackets, sandwiching the roof between the rails and the brackets so no load is placed on the hardtop - all of the load is transferred from the XJ rails to the brackets to the roll bars. The brackets I designed are for the LJ Safari Cab so they wouldn't fit in a TJ with a factory hardtop - the Safari Cab roof is higher inside than the factory roof, and the LJ roll bars are different from the TJ bars. Because I designed these brackets as an option that I expected Gr8Tops to pick up for the Safari Cab hardtop, I never published a public write up on them. And then unfortunately they decided not to offer the brackets as a Safari Cab option.
Ah okay I see. It’s too bad they didn’t pick it up because I think it’s brilliant.
I don’t have access to any sort of tools to be able to fabricate my own brackets but do you have any recommendations for a type of shop that might be able to make some?
Not need… but after having to endure water/mud getting into my tent at a place we do a yearly trip to I want something off the ground. I plan to rebuild this teardrop I have soon-ish, sell it and buy a different one (simply put its nicer than what I can do) but in the interim I simply want to be off the ground
alpineovernappa
Member
We bought one,while we are house shopping (seeing the country)sets up in 30 seconds holds all of the sleeping stuff,Gobi rack,we love it,but will have a hoist when I buy a house(maybe waiting on Ian now)by the way @Jerry Bransford how you doing with the sjohns river?
Hello, how heavy is your RTT? Were you comfortable off-roading still? And lastly which RTT is that? Thank you!
Ikamper 3.0 mini,love it sets up fast and is a queen size bed,says it’s 125 lbs.with the Gobi rack there is some weight but couldn’t happen without the sway lock,hardly know it’s up there.
Did you happen to have a 2.0 before that? Just curious, I'm about to pull the trigger on a 3.0 mini for the Gladiator but there are some pretty good deals to be found on the 2.0 mini still. That 3.0 looks so nice though
The 3.0 is a little taller for room to keep bedding in.I like the looks of a 2.0 better.
Hi old post I know ,but I went down the same route with the rooftop tent ,only using these inside the roof to help support rock solid.