faulke
Member
Hello all,
I’ve lurked around the forums for a while and thought I’d share what I’ve been working on the past nine months or so. Back in October, I stumbled across a used Flippac while looking for a truck cap for my Toyota T100. The unit was meant for a domestic truck, so the fit would be a bit off, but for the price I just had to make it work. Armed with the financial prosperity of a graduate student stipend (sarcasm), I was determined to turn the camper into "base camp on a budget" for all my outdoor adventures, such as backpacking, mountain biking, and fly fishing. The following are some mods I made to suit my needs with (relatively) little financial investment, so I still had some funds left over for travel and the necessities of surviving thesis-writing (copious amounts of coffee and beer, preferably in that order, but sometimes I get confused).
The camper:
The good:
- Canvas and interior in excellent shape
- Bedrug included
- Cheap!
The bad:
- Broken torsion bar
- No crank handle
- Cracks in gel coat
- Leaks around windows and torsion bar mounts
You also might notice the brackets installed on top. They hold two poles that are held in place by pins. I was told they were used as the support rods for the lid when flipped open. I'm not sure if this was done by the manufacturer or a previous owner, but they did a pretty nice job with it. Anyone else seen something like this on a Flippac?
First, I had to make it fit my truck. I won't go into the details, but it basically meant raising it 3/4" so it fit flush with the bed rails. I used PVC trim and weatherstripping to accomplish this. This is only temporary, and I'll eventually modify the shell to sit normal on the bed rails.
Next, I needed make it open. This meant either buying a new torsion bar and crank handle, or coming up with a new way to open the top. After learning the manufacturer wanted $600 for the pair, I decided on the latter. I found this thread (http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/59441-replacing-flip-pac-torsion-bar/page4?highlight=torsion+bar) about using quick disconnect ball joints and a long push pole. This gave me an idea for my Flippac. I could replace the bars in the brackets on the lid with galvanized pipe and a coupler to attach a push pole, like this:
Adding a short nipple, 90-degree coupler, and a 9' push pole, and I had it open for the first time.
Then came attaching support struts from the lid, since the torsion bar no longer supported any weight. I used the quick disconnect ball joints in the aforementioned thread to accomplish this by attaching them to the sides of the bumper. The support struts ended up being two pieces of ~4.5' galvanized pipe that could be coupled together to use as the push pole. Funny how things work out. I've used this setup for the last six months or so, and it feels solid.
The extra length of the Flippac caused a gap at the tailgate, which I fixed by adding a piece of garage door weather-stripping to the bottom of the back window, and a piece of pipe insulation to the tailgate. Not the prettiest fix, but it works and was cheap.
A couple other things that needed to get done included siliconing windows and replacing old silicone in the torsion bar mounts with 3M 5200, since they were leaking water into the interior. I threw the bed rug in, and it was ready to go camping. But I also wanted storage for my gear...
More updates to come regarding interior modifications.
-faulke
I’ve lurked around the forums for a while and thought I’d share what I’ve been working on the past nine months or so. Back in October, I stumbled across a used Flippac while looking for a truck cap for my Toyota T100. The unit was meant for a domestic truck, so the fit would be a bit off, but for the price I just had to make it work. Armed with the financial prosperity of a graduate student stipend (sarcasm), I was determined to turn the camper into "base camp on a budget" for all my outdoor adventures, such as backpacking, mountain biking, and fly fishing. The following are some mods I made to suit my needs with (relatively) little financial investment, so I still had some funds left over for travel and the necessities of surviving thesis-writing (copious amounts of coffee and beer, preferably in that order, but sometimes I get confused).
The camper:
The good:
- Canvas and interior in excellent shape
- Bedrug included
- Cheap!
The bad:
- Broken torsion bar
- No crank handle
- Cracks in gel coat
- Leaks around windows and torsion bar mounts
You also might notice the brackets installed on top. They hold two poles that are held in place by pins. I was told they were used as the support rods for the lid when flipped open. I'm not sure if this was done by the manufacturer or a previous owner, but they did a pretty nice job with it. Anyone else seen something like this on a Flippac?
First, I had to make it fit my truck. I won't go into the details, but it basically meant raising it 3/4" so it fit flush with the bed rails. I used PVC trim and weatherstripping to accomplish this. This is only temporary, and I'll eventually modify the shell to sit normal on the bed rails.
Next, I needed make it open. This meant either buying a new torsion bar and crank handle, or coming up with a new way to open the top. After learning the manufacturer wanted $600 for the pair, I decided on the latter. I found this thread (http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/59441-replacing-flip-pac-torsion-bar/page4?highlight=torsion+bar) about using quick disconnect ball joints and a long push pole. This gave me an idea for my Flippac. I could replace the bars in the brackets on the lid with galvanized pipe and a coupler to attach a push pole, like this:
Adding a short nipple, 90-degree coupler, and a 9' push pole, and I had it open for the first time.
Then came attaching support struts from the lid, since the torsion bar no longer supported any weight. I used the quick disconnect ball joints in the aforementioned thread to accomplish this by attaching them to the sides of the bumper. The support struts ended up being two pieces of ~4.5' galvanized pipe that could be coupled together to use as the push pole. Funny how things work out. I've used this setup for the last six months or so, and it feels solid.
The extra length of the Flippac caused a gap at the tailgate, which I fixed by adding a piece of garage door weather-stripping to the bottom of the back window, and a piece of pipe insulation to the tailgate. Not the prettiest fix, but it works and was cheap.
A couple other things that needed to get done included siliconing windows and replacing old silicone in the torsion bar mounts with 3M 5200, since they were leaking water into the interior. I threw the bed rug in, and it was ready to go camping. But I also wanted storage for my gear...
More updates to come regarding interior modifications.
-faulke
