Converting a Pop Up to Gas Strut Lift ????

[West Coast Mags]

I have a unique pop up camper, similar to a four wheel camper, that uses a pretty flimsy metal sliding track system with springs to assist when raising or lowering the roof. After an "incident" trying to disassemble it for repair I've managed to bend a number of the tracks and the slides the move in.

The lift systems is basically a series of bars that make and X pattern on the sides of the camper. When you push up on the roof, the X spreads with the aid of a horizontal spring on the bottom and one on the top.

My buddies and I were tossing around the idea of trying to convert it to gas struts, like they use to lift a hard tonneau cover on a pick up truck. My top is one piece fiberglass like a tonneau and is about the same size and weight. We were thinking that if we arranged two struts on each side in a V pattern it would lift and close easily and each strut would only have to handle about 40 - 50 lbs.

Anyone tried something similar or have other ideas?

This camper is about 30 years old and parts are non-existant. Everything bent pretty easily have the premonition of it happening again in the future if I put it back to stock.

[Martyn]

The idea should work. You can get the gas struts from Mc Master. I think they have a chart for the selection of the struts based on their lifting capacity and also a chart showing how the angle of installation will effect the lifting capability of the strut.

Good luck.

[Carlyle]

If you want to go with a power lift you could use linear actuators from http://www.firgelli.com/index.php. I used one of their 12 volt lift for a flat screen, but they could easily do what you are looking at.

[West Coast Mags]

Do you remember how much the actuator was? I would need four and they would have to extend about 24" and each be capable of lifting 40-50lbs.

I have a buddy thats the manager at a NAPA store and their gas strut spec lists is about 4 pages of small small print so I'm sure they would have something that would work.

[Carlyle]

The actuator I am using fits that spec almost exactly. It was around $100 and I picked it up from http://www.firgelliauto.com/. I also bought a up down switch and some limiters, but you could do that yourself if you wanted or bypass the limiters. I'll post some pictures later today when I put the top up on my camper.