Pop Top Suburban.

I thought I had posted this already, but apparently not.  Most of these pics / info is over a year old, and can also be seen here:  http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=801632

Now that its spring break, I'm hoping to get this thing built.  For now, here's the old info for y'all to catch up on.

This idea has been kicking around in the back of my head for a couple of years now. I want a "Poptop" that I can mount to the roof rack of my Suburban. I had a few basic design requirements-

1. Has to be TALL. At least 6 feet on one end. I'll still have to slouch majorly, but I can handle 6 feet.

2. Room for two people.

3. Simple construction, easy to build, no large time commitment.

4. CHEAP.

5. Was hoping that one person would be able to mount / dismount from the roof, but I don't think thats going to be possible unless I have a "hoist" of some sort in my garage... Also a possiblity.

After monkeyin around with this idea forever, Here's what I came up with. Got LOTS of other drawings with a ton more ideas, but here are a few basics to show you the idea.

Havent decided WHERE on the roof its going, but I am planning on putting it as far towards the front for two reasons- I can have a "door" in the floor where the sunroof is, allowing me to get in and out through the sunroof, and it will also leave the back end of the roof rack free for tying other stuff on.



Here you can see a little on how I plan to hold the lid UP. 4 pieces of conduit near the corners- once side much longer than the other. Not 100% on how I'm going to attach them to the lid, but current thinking is I will flatten the upper end of the conduit enough to put the skinny end of a T hinge in it, then weld the two together and bolt the whole thing to the roof.



Sides of the camper will be coming from a ginormous canvas cabin tent I picked up at a yard sale a few years ago. The floor is likely going to be 3/4 CDX, but open to suggestions? Canvas will be stapled to the underside of the floor on the bottom, then a pocket will be sewn all the way around the top of the canvas. Inside of that pocket will be conduit to keep the shape, which will be bolted to the roof.



Lower end of the conduit will have something like pictured, but just a piece of angle iron or aluminum with slots cut in it for the conduit support pole to rest in- several of them to allow for adjusting tension.


Course, all them's ideas are about 2 years old.  I've been doing a lot of doodling and have come up with a lot of other ideas.  Last summer, I scored this.



It was free. Came off of a '70's Ford long box, ironically.. Measurements are a little off for what I want but we'll get there in a bit.



 I got the saw out and started hacking. Jig saw- Not so much.



Skill saw with the blade on backwards- much better!





Here's where it'll be mounted.



A sheet of plywood would sit on both outer racks and have the support of the middle rib all the way down. The roof is definitely strong enough to hold me standing on it with zero flex or dents in the roof, so I'm pretty sure a 3/4 chunk of plywood supported by the 2 roof rack bars and the center ribs will be plenty strong without any cross braces underneath, which will help keep the profile LOW.

Next issue- the roof curves down towards the front of the 'burb. This was going to be a problem because this is where I wanted to be able to stand- there wouldn't have been any support under this section of floor. Problem solved- I just wont stand. The sun roof entrance will be at the very far end of the floor meaning whoever's sleeping up there won't be able to do anything there anyways.



Another idea I've had kickin around for a while is to enclose this area- make some type of wall that hooks to the hatch when its open like this creating a "room" off the back of the 'burb. This is a long ways down the road but you never know. I can *just* stand under this without bonking my head.



Test fitting.







Its way too wide. Going to chop it about 5 inches in from one side, overlap the two pieces, and bolt them back together with copious amounts of silicone in between. Think it'll work?



Hardest part is going to be trimming around the edges to match the contours of the suburban after I get it cut down to the right size...

Chopy chopy.

Here's what I was thinking at first- cut on blue line, overlap, bolt together.



Wasn't going to give me enough room, and I didnt want to chop BOTH side and bolt them together, so I decided to cut the middle. REALLY didnt want to do this cause it seems like a guaranteed leak point, but oh well. We'll see how it works. Markin and measurin.



Chop chop.



Overlaps about 3 inches. Will be bolted & glued together down the center, and will have more support from the conduit frame that holds up the tent wall.



So there you go.  Should be all caught up.  I do have the two halves bolted together, and have scrounged up some extra house wrap scraps to use for the tent walls.  Changed the design for the struts quite a bit and am going out to Home Depot here in a bit to buy parts.  *HOPEFULLY*, I will have more progress to report this week!  Really hoping to be able to get out and use it on the Father-Son campout this year, which is usually in April. 

Make-It Workshop

Well, I had TWO takers for my community class... Figured it'd help get the word out so we went ahead and did (are doing) the class anyways. I thought people around here would love a cheap hackerspace. Maybe when the word gets out we can do more with that.

Anyways, my two students wanted to do a few different things. One wanted to tune up her bike. No prob, easy peasy. Got that done. Her son (my other student) wants to build a hard top for his Isuzu Amigo. Errr... Okay. No idea how to do that but they seemed willing to experiment and were okay if it doesn't turn out, so here we go...

LOTS of figuring and head scratching.





I'm pretty limited by the size of my tools, but we picked a route to go and we're giving it a try.  I've got a 24" shear and a 24" brake, so anything over 2 feet is out if it needs to be done "in house".


We spent a bunch of time with a marker and some paper to trace the curve and transfer it to the metal.  At the end of the evening, as we were putting on the soft top, I picked up the side window and realized it ALREADY has the perfect shape and we could have just traced it.  Ah well, live and learn.




Got to use my custom built radius fingers!  Made 4 radius bends to get a much larger curved bend to match the corner around the back.




Using the edge former again.  Glad I've spent some time experimenting with it, but I still feel like it can do a lot more than I know.  Need to read into that.




One side down.  The top edge of the side will be folded over and the current plan is to rivet the top to the side along that bend.  Obviously, that means the top back corner will need trimmed still, but the lower edges seem to fit well and the edge we rolled on them even snaps in to the existing frame fairly evenly!





One side "done". Still need to clean up the rolled edge and trim a few parts off.  Originally the plan was to make the top in two pieces, then two sides, and then a back piece.  He's going to contact some other shops and see if he can find access to a larger break so we can make the top and back in one big piece, then rivet the sides on. More to follow after class next week!

Getting there?

Been playing with the TIG welder more. I'm getting closer. I really have very little experience with these but they are soooo much fun! After reading several different (chapters from) welding books, reading about 800 different website's "tips and tricks", and watching 37 million youtube videos, it starts to make sense. I spent some time practicing the movement without any juice- just resting a finger on the table lightly, sliding the torch along, and dabbing the filler rod in. Felt like a doofus sitting there, but that's pretty much par for the course.



Not real pretty, but progress. I actually managed several long welds without gunking up the tungsten once!  Some of those welds are from a few years ago when I took a real short community class on welding. I spent an hour or two playing with a TIG and got to try welding stainless, plain old steel, and aluminum. Stainless was really fun to weld, aluminum not so much. We had some really nice welders with the foot pedal control. Makes it really easy to get into position, stomp the pedal, and then back off to a nice heat to match the speed you were moving. No such luxury on my welder- and it shows. I have a tendency to slow down as I weld, and with aluminum (from what I have read) you need to either speed up or back of on the juice because the aluminum absorbs and spreads the heat so quickly. Meaning, my longer welds, by the time I get to the end, have way to much heat and the puddle is starting to sink through the metal. I'm doing better at remembering to keep the torch darn near vertical and the rod more horizontal. Speaking of the rod- dabbing sure doesn't work well for me. I tend to just rest the rod on the base metal and slide it back and forth.

Here's a set of welding videos I found pretty usefull-







LOTS more that have a lot of good info.  The interwebs is an amazing tool.

Thought I'd also post a pic of the painted parts for my truck motor. I think it turned out swell! Now if only I had the money for all the internals, I could start stuffing it back together. Hoping to have this "quick summer project" (that's going on 2 years now...) done THIS SUMMER. Expect pigs to fly.


 


 

Ford Blue

One of my all time favorite colors.  In fact, I once painted an entire motorcycle that color.  Plugging away on the "big" project.  I had cleaned up the block a few weeks ago, and am hoping to hone it over the Christmas break.  I had a few minutes and the garage was warm, so I used up the rest of a can of engine paint on one side of the block.

Had to get it nice and warm first...




"Finished", except it needs another coat or two and I didnt do the edges real well because nothing is masked yet.

 

Santa brought me a little money to put towards this project, but I'm still a tad short to order the rebuild kit.  Hoping to get a few customers projects out of the way, that will give me some money and time to hopefully get the motor back together before school gets out for summer. 

Christmas was great- spent some good time with family both near and sorta-far, played lots of games, cleaned the house a bazillion times, and reach a book or two.  Managed to scrounge up a nice big chunk of brass and a few other things as well as play with my TIG welder a bit, but more on that later.  Still have a few days to play a few more games, do another puzzle (or, watch my wife do it anyways...) and who know what else.  Back to school on Wednesday, see y'all next year!

Grinding Wheat

Not really, but it sure feels like the grinding wheel of life has been busy the last few months. Between school, kids, family, food, work, and all the other responsibilities it seems like there is hardly time to take a breath. I have been meaning to write here more frequently, so now seems like as good a time as any to try it again...

Education has been on my mind a lot recently. As a teacher with a whopping 3 years of experience under my belt, and with a wife who is almost finished with her degree in education, I guess that would be normal. I really feel that Idaho's students are at great risk if Propositions 1, 2, and 3 are passed. What it amounts to for me, is that the grand poo-bah mucky-muck of education (who has never set foot in a classroom as an educator) really doesn't care what educators have done and are doing for their students- nor does he care what we think might help our students succeed.

Enough politics. Can't stand 'em. Becoming and educator was a real eye opener for me- really can't avoid politics when you're a teacher, but that's a different story for another day. How about something more intersting!?

Progress update on a few current projects. Milly the $200 F150 has come a teeensy little ways- got a bit more painting done over the summer and just scored some sweet brand new tires and rims for it. Traded off a different project bike for them, so it's win win for me. One less project to fuss over and more parts for another!

 POJ, the '67 Yamaha Trailmaster Cafe is still dormant. Trying to find a non-existant rubber plug for the oil injection pump. Got rid of a fixxer upper car, made it possible to move the truck and for the first time since we've lived here (really, the first time ever) we can park a car in the garage!

Finished and road the ST1100 all over the place this summer. Did Glacier / Going to the Sun Hwy, and a bunch of other roads too. Managed to put just over 2000 miles on it in under a month, visiting 4 states and 2 provinces. It was a BLAST.

Managed to drag home another project- this one with some sentimental value and a whole lot of history.  Its a '48 Dodge 1 ton pickup- that my great grandpa bought brand new in '48.  Hoping to get it back on the road.

Stayed busy fixing things for people too, that was a much needed blessing. Anxious for next summer- hoping to have more time to work AND play. Hopefully, I can keep the blog going a bit more. Got a few things dealing with education I'd like to get off my chest and hopefully glean some ideas from y'all (yeah, the two people that might check the blog once a month..) Pics from the summer.