Post by Cowboy Camper on Oct 16, 2009 20:28:31 GMT -6
This was an interesting camper I had a couple of years ago, the '75 Palomino with a non crank up type of roof.
Everything was Internal as far as the lifting rods/bars were concerned. The system worked when you slid the bunk ends in or out. Each bunk end lifted a half of the roof at the same time.
Aside from the Alignment issues I had with the front roof locks, it was a pretty cool system to have. Here's a series of Pics to illustrate how it worked.
All opened up at camp.
Remove awning, bunk bars (Inside and outside), flip galley, etc. and then...
Slide in the Front bunk.
As you can see, the front half of the roof drops too. One bad thing about this system here.... if it has rained the night before you break camp, get ready for a nice Shower!
The next step: Pin Lock the front hold downs. This is where the alignment issues came into play on my particular camper. Often times, this was a BEAR to line up.
Then the Rear bunk gets slid in as well, thus lowering the rear half of the roof. There was a Safety Pin inside the camper and a secondary catch inside after the bunk was slid in a couple of inches but I never got any pics of them before the camper was destroyed.
But here's the rear bunk ready to slide in.
The rear Latch is missing from the pic, but it was the same style that is now used on all 4 corners of modern campers.
She's all closed up in this pic. To tuck in the canvas, just lift up the roof a little and tuck it in. I used to have some short pieces of 1x3 wood to keep the roof propped up as I went around the camper to tuck in the canvas. Crude, but it worked.
All closed up and ready to roll!
Here she is all ready to head on down the road again.
To Raise the roof, simply Reverse the steps here.
Believe it or not, the bunks were really not too terribly difficult to slide out even though they were also lifting up half of the roof at the same time. Yes. it was harder than sliding out a bunk just by itself, but the internal leverage was designed well enough that a single person could easily set up the entire camper.
All in all, I thought this was a pretty good design. I regret that I never got more pics of the inside roof lifting rods and the leverage connections to the slide out bunk ends. I would have liked to have had a better understanding as to how this was all assembled.
Everything was Internal as far as the lifting rods/bars were concerned. The system worked when you slid the bunk ends in or out. Each bunk end lifted a half of the roof at the same time.
Aside from the Alignment issues I had with the front roof locks, it was a pretty cool system to have. Here's a series of Pics to illustrate how it worked.
All opened up at camp.
Remove awning, bunk bars (Inside and outside), flip galley, etc. and then...
Slide in the Front bunk.
As you can see, the front half of the roof drops too. One bad thing about this system here.... if it has rained the night before you break camp, get ready for a nice Shower!
The next step: Pin Lock the front hold downs. This is where the alignment issues came into play on my particular camper. Often times, this was a BEAR to line up.
Then the Rear bunk gets slid in as well, thus lowering the rear half of the roof. There was a Safety Pin inside the camper and a secondary catch inside after the bunk was slid in a couple of inches but I never got any pics of them before the camper was destroyed.
But here's the rear bunk ready to slide in.
The rear Latch is missing from the pic, but it was the same style that is now used on all 4 corners of modern campers.
She's all closed up in this pic. To tuck in the canvas, just lift up the roof a little and tuck it in. I used to have some short pieces of 1x3 wood to keep the roof propped up as I went around the camper to tuck in the canvas. Crude, but it worked.
All closed up and ready to roll!
Here she is all ready to head on down the road again.
To Raise the roof, simply Reverse the steps here.
Believe it or not, the bunks were really not too terribly difficult to slide out even though they were also lifting up half of the roof at the same time. Yes. it was harder than sliding out a bunk just by itself, but the internal leverage was designed well enough that a single person could easily set up the entire camper.
All in all, I thought this was a pretty good design. I regret that I never got more pics of the inside roof lifting rods and the leverage connections to the slide out bunk ends. I would have liked to have had a better understanding as to how this was all assembled.