EarthRoamer XV-JP "Northwest Edition"

[thebrassnuckles]

man, I'd like to see how the original top was opened with a motor. do you have any pictures of how it all went together?

btw, that looks sweet, where do the people sleep now?

[The Adam Blaster]

Is anyone else surprised and a bit bothered that a $100,000+ vehicle has design flaws that compromises the structure?
I would think with that price size of a price tag, the engineering would be a bit better.

[kjp1969]

I want MMMMOOOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!!!

Pictures, that is.

[Gear]

man, I'd like to see how the original top was opened with a motor. do you have any pictures of how it all went together?

btw, that looks sweet, where do the people sleep now?

If you look closely at this photograph you will see in the bottom right corner the winch that is being used to close the top.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8MfiurqFBAE/TM...800/ERJK12.jpg

[thebrassnuckles]

If you look closely at this photograph you will see in the bottom right corner the winch that is being used to close the top.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8MfiurqFBAE/TM...800/ERJK12.jpg

Thanks!

how does it open?

[Ryanmb21]

Why not just change the material of the original tent to more opaque/waterproof material? Now you sleep on the rear seat area and this improves usability? Could you explain that?

[mhiscox]

While James is being circumspect in referencing me as "the customer," I suspect most everyone knows that this is my XV-JP and so I'm probably the best choice for explaining the reason for the redo . . .

Why not just change the material of the original tent to more opaque/waterproof material? Now you sleep on the rear seat area and this improves usability? Could you explain that?

When I bought the ER, the short-term (1400 miles) original owner's "tester" wrote me a long e-mail to warn me of the problems I would have with the tent's lack of weathertightness.

His experiences were confirmed in the first few weeks I had it (it arrived in November), and I started planning the revision soon after finding ER's original tent setup to be way too soggy for my use--when it was raining, when it was stored and even from internal condensation when it was dry outside. And as I'd been warned, there were also problems with the air-supported tent being floppy and intolerably noisy in high winds. (In fact, one night when delivering the truck, Chris Shontz had to sleep on the floor due to high winds in Kansas.) Also, I found it a problem that the entire setup was too large and grandiose to deploy quickly when you wanted to make a fifteen-minute stop someplace like a rest area, which was an issue because with the tent down, you could not even sit comfortably on the cabin bench, let alone stand. With the pneumatics, I can have standing height in about 20 seconds.

None of this would be compelling if I'd needed the giant queen size bed provided in the original design, but I didn't. Sleeping on the "ground floor" on a convertible bench/bed will, for my use, be far superior to climbing a considerable height into the much less weathertight tent. Further, the original tent was, as you might guess, truly unusable in seriously bad weather, whereas I will be able to live and sleep in the "Northwest Edition," as James has named it, in snow and sleet without ever leaving the vehicle, or even raising the roof if the weather is really gruesome. And you can easily see that the new version will be practical to heat during the winter, which was not the case with the original setup.

Regarding the new tent top, the result doesn't look long enough for adults to sleep in. Is this correct?

The principle person sleeps on a curbside bed 18 inches off the floor, but James and I are looking into the possibility that a second person can be accommodated with a bed that's supported by the roll cage above the streetside shelving. Because of the extra couple of feet available in the "nose cone," there's plenty of length. The only question, unsettled at the moment, is whether I'd rather use the space for the bed or have more storage.

Just thinking aloud, would it have been possible to do the tent sides in some sort of hard material that folds down into itself...? Even better protection in the rain i'd have thought.... almost like Sonke's toyota conversion.

I thought about this long and hard, but the complexity turned out not to be worth it. The cabin is pretty useful now even with the roof down, and I decided that having hard panels would take up space and increase the complexity without enough benefit. And while an overlapping roof like Sonke's would be very cool, the conversion we did was more practical because keeping the "hinged in back" arrangement made life much simplier by using the original ER hinge and latches.

[Ryanmb21]

Mike - very interesting, thanks for the explanation. It's looking very good!

[jrueppel]

Really nice work. - I definitely think the Westphalia style pop top is going to work better for Northwest weather. Out of curiosity I wonder if Earthroamer wouldn't think about just manufacturing the empty shells in this configuration to work around the existing role cage for JK owners. Ok. Maybe modify the front part so it fits snuggly down on to the existing jeep attachment points over the front seats (never really understood why that gap was left in there) and bring the pop top starting point a little farther forward so you can get a 6 foot bed up there with an e-camper style porthole over the rear seat. The JK is a great vehicle for getting through the snow - having a weatherized camper top so I could sleep at the back country trail head before skiing out. Now that's would be an interesting package.

[cshontz]

Wow!

Well done, guys!