*THE RTT Owners Thread (With BS)*

Living in Alabama I get "what's that thang?" A lot. More often directed at the snorkel, but to the tent as well. When i tell folks it's a tent the next question is always "like fer sleepin in?"

 

my favorite is that my CVT literally says "CASCADIA VEHICLE TENTS"

 

lmao yeah I've wanted to tell some that I open it up and drive down the road with it open so folks can party on top sort of like a limo.

 

I was getting the Christmas tree this past Christmas and someone asked, “is that a storage container you got up there?”

 

I had this lady on a line for a good while at the store last night.

Mobile Hot Air Balloon Attachment!

"Yeah, I got the burner in my garage. When you wanna take to the sky, you just mount it under the rack here, and just fire it up!"

"But I see so many around Salt Lake. I had no idea hot air ballooning was so popular"

"Yeah, there's a festival coming up, so we all have to get ready. Kinda tricky to mount"

She was not pleased when I told her I was joking.

 

I've done that. Especially with people at work.
The people I work with have lots of post grad degrees. Almost entirely.

 

I got a Zinus 1.5" memory foam from Amazon.

$54 ZINUS 1.5" Green Tea Cooling Gel Memory Foam Mattress Topper / Cooling Gel Foam / CertiPUR-US Certified, Queen,Blue

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073HFRNCL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05__o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Tried it out last night, and I was surprised by how much it improved the factory mattress in my Smittybilt. Very comfortable.

The problem is now I am going to have to get a ratchet strap to close up the tent. With the Teton bag and the memory foam on top of the OEM mattress it is impossible to compress that down enough to get the straps secured.

 

I had this problem with a 3 inch topper. I cut the topper in half and put the two pieces on top of each other by the door of the tent. It closes now with no problem.

 

Anybody leave their tent on all the time?

 

Yes. I have no where to put it.

 

Yes I do, and I have had to replace some straps because of sun rot.

 

Every day for 2.5 years now. Truck sits outside. Hail, rain, sun, snow, squirrels. No issues so far.

 

Mine is on my trailer all the time outside. I do keep a tarp over it to help protect it from the weather.

 

I finally found a great solution for my RTT and rack that go on and off my truck when not camping. I started with tie downs as hoist points, but as my tent got larger and my rack had a hi-lift mounted it became hard to lift it. Then I got a hoist from Amazon which worked fine for awhile but then the gear mechanism started to fail, so I bought an electric hoist. I got a Harbor Freight 440lb hoist for $99 and ceiling mount pulleys, reused my vertical pulleys that were apart of my previous hoist and it works very well. The key factor to an even lift is make sure the final pulleys for each cable are the same distance from the pulling line, which meant I had to make my pulleys parallel to the winch.

Very easy even lift (I hadn’t tied up the extra cable in the foreground of the photo yet)


Previous vertical pulleys fed by ceiling mount pulleys

Used these pelican cases for weight as I made the cables even length


Pulleys parallel and equidistance from the winch


$99 of lifting magic

 

wanted to share a build I've been working on the last couple weekends - made it over a big hump of installing the hinge and struts, excited about finally seeing it come together. Will eventually be mounting on some steel bed rail cross bars, want to keep it below the cab to keep any additional noise to a minimum

tl;dr updated 2/17/19: https://youtu.be/hTDLuA_OnoI

build thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/roof-top-tent-diy-build.591321/

 

I do. Three reasons:
1. She Who Must Be Obeyed already complains about "All your stupid truck crap" in the garage. Rigging a lift in there would be a major source of irritation for me indirectly.
2. I haven't cleaned out the barn to the point that I can rig a lift out there yet.
3. Literally everywhere I go I get asked about the rack and the RTT. And when she's with me, it's hilarious because it drives her apeshit. Seriously. Getting gas, the dealership, work, meetings, the jail, hospitals, police, drive throughs, restaurants, picking kids up. Even picking SWMBO up from the doctor (yeah, that was an awesome one). So if the tent's on there, there's a chance somebody is going to ask about it. And we she is with me there's endless entertainment value.

 

Sorry @Gunshot-6A , rain came in early and left before the night. Weather hood did keep the wind out though.

Mild temp wise.

20* , 15mph winds gusting to 25mph.

 

I have an older leer topper I would like to put a prinsu top rack on then a RTT on the rack. Will I have any issues if my topper is not reinforced?

 

Savage.

 

I would even reinforce a newer one. I like piece of mind, especially if I leave the bar with a fat chick and end up camping in the parking lot.