Lifted Pop-Up Camper

First post. If someone has already brought this up, please direct me to the right place. But, my recently retired baby boomer father just bought a new camper and will be giving me his pop-up camper, for free. Grateful, but it's currently rolling on 13" tires. My plan is to lift it a little and run some bigger tires. My 2016 will have 265's on it tomorrow (yay, separate excitement post). I'm not wanting to go that big, but just something to give it a little more lift for beach travel and such. I know this isn't a Tacoma post, but thought I'd run it by everyone for ideas or to see if anyone has attempted with luck before.

P.S., I'm a pretty experienced welder, but not as familiar with suspensions as I'd like to be. Would be doing most of the work myself. Annnnnnd, go!

 

Larger tires may or may not require lifting the camper
My '12 Flagstaff came with 175/80R13 tires, which unfortunately were barely up to the task of carrying the camper as delivered from dealer, add camping junk and the tires were at or over capacity.
I upsized the wheels and tires/wheels 185R14 which added 1.5" of diameter to the wheel/tire combo. it's tighter in the wheel well, but works well.

as far as lifting the camper, HOW you do it depends on what the axle set up is on your camper. If you're axle is above the spring pack, you can do a "spring over" and remount the axle under the spring pack, this can gain you upwards of 4" of lift. there are various kits depending on one axle configuration.

If you have a "torsion" axle, you'll have to space the axle away from the main frame of the camper.

check out http://www.popupportal.com/index.php?action=forum a lot of info there and many lifts have been discussed

 

I wish my problem was 13" wheels. Probably should have specified. I won't have the camper for a few days (maybe weeks), but pops said the tires are close to 13" tall. Probably a like a 8" wheel. How it is highway safe, I don't know.

 

But, I'll check that forum out . Thanks! Been looking for a forum on pop-ups, and couldn't find it. That's why I came here. Lol

 

Check out some of the guys trailer builds on here to get some ideas of what you need to do. Maybe some new hangers for a leaf back would be all you need

 

Once you lift it, change out the hubs for ones with the toyota bolt pattern and put matching tires to your taco on it... The you don't have to carry two spare tires and if you ever wreck more than one tire on the taco you can steal from your trailer if needed

 

Did I mention that this is a free camper? Lol. Maybe down the road, but right now I'm just looking for a little more clearance than the 3" on it.

 

Exactly! Free means you can pretend it wasn't free by dumping money into mods!

 

What type of axle does it have? Is it a straight axle, or U shaped where it bends up - actually lowering the camper? If it's the square-stock U-shaped axle style, it's really easy to flip the axle gaining lift and lots of extra clearance. I flipped mine and got 6 inches of lift, but due to the orientation of the axle, I got more than that in axle clearance.



before lifting truck or camper

 

Mine was lifted when I purchased it. I'll look tomorrow for you to see how it was done and tire size.

 

Try Redneck Trailer Supply in Tampa. They'll either have what you're looking for or can get it. www.redneck-trailer.com
You can order an axle and get the bolt pattern to match the Tacoma. You'll also want a torsion axle to gain ground clearance.
you'd probably spend 300 -400 on a new axle.

 

That is a huge difference. 8" wheels vs 13" that is. Just huge. Not to mention the additional tire options that come with a larger wheel. Before considering 'lift' you need to have the unit in front of you and find out exactly what's what, both on wheels and suspension.

I bought a pretty junk tilt boat trailer in the early 70's and converted it to a utility trailer. I used it for 30 years, then gave it away. It's still in service. Anyway, it had 8" wheels, 4 lug. I found the 13" wheels from a Chevy Vega had the same bolt pattern, but the center was too small for the hub.

So I ground out the hub center (couldn't afford a machine shop in those days) by hand, got some used A70 tires and away we went. The frame was lifted several inches by this change alone.

Have fun!

 

Last is a google pic of my model. You can see at factory, the axle is located above the springs. Mine has a spring over, which puts the axle below the springs for lift. Hope this info helps.

 

Nice. Exactly the kind of insight I was looking for. I should be picking up the camper this weekend and I'll check more specifics. I think the one I'm getting is a viking like that one, so good to know it'll be fairly easy.

 

Don't know much about this, but will lifting it change what your levelling jacks can do?

 

Hey, one problem at a time. Ha. No, but for real, I've wondered the same thing. Just figured I could get larger, ground mounted ones to replace it. This is only for creature comfort camping anyway, so I won't be taking it many places with harsh terrain.

 

typically lifting the camper will leave the stabilizer legs short, time to either make some stack blocks or get longer legs.

keep in mind, most stabilizers are just that, they aren't well suited for actual lifting/jacking, only stabilizing and maintaining level once established by tongue jack and wheel placement. .

 

Sounds like a ton of lift if you want to go from 13" tires to 32". Is that right?

 

Naaa. Just bigger than what's on it. The tires that are on it now appear to be the type that would be on a lawn mower trailer. Not sure how they are road worthy and rated for the rate of the trailer.

I just want a little more clearance for beach camping. And who am I kidding, it just looks a lot better.

 

There's always this.