How to: DIY Wedge Camper

Oh the actual corner bracket? I think I sealed mine when I assembled it.

 

Just with silicone?

 

I am in FL and used a generous amount of silicone. I taped off areas past any joining of 8020 and brackets and added silicone. No leaks even with our summer monsoons while driving 60mph on the highway.

 

My apologies for not seeing this earlier!

The diesel heater is working fantastic! I put it in a knock off pelican case and used Valterra 3" RV waste connections and caps. The straight fittings that connect to the vent hose are thinner so they melted but the 45° connections are doing well.

Right where it's at is perfect. Our kids sleep on a bed platform, so I made a little air director to blow the hot air upwards into the main tent body. Honestly the top portion gets colder without the heater so most of the hot air is pointed upstairs.

 

Anyone have an alternative to Tnutz and 80/20? 80/20 machining cost and time was crazy and tnutz sits on orders for over a month if they are not pallet sized jobs now.

 

Do you have any pictures of your platform?

 

I ordered from 80/20 through a distributor (not Tnutz). 3 weeks from order to ship for black, cut to length, and tapped. Where are you located?

My machining cost was very reasonable and lead time seemed average. Maybe Tnutz is marking up?

 

i think the pricing evens out, machining was cheaper but the aluminum cost more, although i think tnutz just raised their prices in the last week and kept the 'sale!' banner for fun.
it just shipped out from tnutz, but my deadline is blown anyway. i wasn't one of those guys that called every day, i called them when their quoted time expired and followed up once each week after that.
should have consulted the magic 8ball because the effect was the same.
25 feet of extrusions and they can't fill the order in 4 weeks. ..what the..
checked my porch, looks like they did split the order into multiple deliveries all of a sudden...

i imagine what happened is my order fell off the clipboard and on the ground, got picked up on someones shoe, made a few trips to the restrooms, then got kicked under the soda machine till it dried out, overheated the soda machine, a tech came out to fix it, found and removed the paper, handed it to someone and the pissy paper order was put into the queue a month later.

 

Did your order show up with any damage? I was going to order through them but it was a bit off-putting when they told me they were unable to guarantee small orders would show up un-damaged. At that point, I reached out to other suppliers.

 

This is pretty cool for design ideas...

https://www.redtailoverland.com/ - I like their hard wall system.

 

The price was like 12k or something dumb when they showcased it at overland expo lol

 

Yeah, not saying 'get one of them', I just like the collapsing inward hard walls and flip up rear wall. two triangles that collapse inward and a square should be fairly doable for us DIYers - then add some foam on the inside for insulation.

 

If anyone perhaps is selling the wedge portion of their tent with a pass thru floor, I'd be interested!

 

No delivery damage, the ends were protected and the extrusions are tightly wrapped together. the ends are finished, doesn't have that "i used a cutoff wheel" look, stuff looks straight but my max length is 59 inches.
glad its all here but after laying it all out i still have to chuckle it took this long for such a small quantity

 

Just about finished the overall structure of the space frame last weekend. Will be finishing all the welds and getting the sleeping platform put on hinges this weekend. Test fit was pretty damn close!

 

Yup

 

That's sweet

 

Thanks! It's all based off the goose gear design, used the same profile aluminum as the wedge just in 1".

 

i wish i had a garage empty enough to weld in front of it

 

Alright fellas, here's the actual fix for water entry.

I don't know why I didn't think about this prior, but after living in the PNW during the rainy seasion, and pressure washing, this is the fix.

The issue arises from having a non-adjustable front hinge. The gap that is set by the 8020 2085 is a determined amount, but unfortunately can provide too much of a gap between the top frame and bottom frame on the wedge.

The fix? Simply get a round file, make one side of the hinge's holes oblonged. Doesn't take much, but it's dependant on how deep your seal is stuffed into the extrusion. Notice the holes on top.



The next step is to use some clamps, and put some compression on the front of the wedge.


Your goal is to get the top frame of the wedge portion to compress the seal, rather than just touching it.

As you can see here, there is a gap on top of the seal in the center of this photo that was letting water in. Compressing this joint reduces/eliminates that gap.


From there, just reinstall the hinge and tighten while the clamps are in place. Then remove the clamps.

Also, adding a bead of silicone under and on the outside of the seal is another way to seal any gaps.


Put your bead of silicone under and along the outside, and then close and latch your wedge portion down. Do this in all four corners.


That's it! I used to get a puddle of water in the corners of my tent along with it running and dripping into the truck bed portion. This has so far eliminated that!

Enjoy!