Attempting to make a small roof rack for my camper. Not sure the way to safe to roof
Because the title says, I plan to make a really small roof rack out of 8020, which I’m assured about, however I’m actually unsure the way to greatest safe it to the roof?
I used to be pondering of utilizing some sort of L brackets alongside the aspect, as I’m assuming there’s one thing strong in there to safe it to, however I’ve no approach of confirming this. The roof is about 2-3” thick and doubtlessly has a hole layer (once more, unsure)
[Here’s the roof in question](https://imgur.com/a/B1M0Ahn)
If anybody has recommendation, it might be a lot appreciated
Comments ( 5 )
Campers are usually hollow with aluminum or wooden framing. If you don’t bolt your rack to the framing you’re going to have a bad time. If this were me, I’d try using a stud finder to see if you can locate where the framing runs. My guess is on a panel that small it’s only around the edges
What’s the make model of your camper?
I’d hold off here until you were absolutely sure that this thing was made to carry weight up there.
I’ve had two campers, and they both had specific reinforced anchor points designed to carry weight. Everywhere else was vinyl/plastic/air/insulation.
It would be terrifying to see a roof box, canoe, bikes, or whatever you’ve loaded pull a camper roof off at highway speeds. Yeiks.
you could go all the way down to the frame and weld it on. Have it wrap around the outside and the top half can have a sleeve/coupling that goes around the section coming up from the bottom half and secure it with like a cotter pin. that way you can just lift the whole top roof rack part off the sleeved pipe and run the popup up as normal
Just because you’re confident in the racking you made
, doesn’t mean you can be confident about the load bearing capacity of the roof of the camper.
I would remove whatever from the inside to see what you’re working with, and what kind of framing is underneath this.
Campers aren’t made with the same kind of roll over structurability that things like cars are, or made with the ability to move around on the roof like many motorhomes are.
I’ve helped make a rack for a small teardrop at the fab shop i work at, we mounted underneath the trailer to the actual frame, like an exocage. Mounting anything directly to the camper seems like a recipe for disaster if you want it to actually hold any weight.