Polar Bear 1

[Zaskoda]

Originally Posted by Christopher Thwaites

Sorry about the girl friend! Why 3/4" ply on the roof platform? If you have support every 24" or so 3/8" would work and be lighter. My son did a roof top platform on his 86 Toyota van. It ended up being kind of a Quanset hut style "tent". Slept 4 or 5 or 6 at Burning Man in 99'. Are you headed for BM? (Burning Man)?

I wanted to use pressure treated wood and the only sheet of pressure treated plywood at Home Depot was 3/4". It is pretty heavy, which concerns me. I'm also attaching the tent directly to the plywood and the plywood to the rack. I'm seriously concerned about how well the tent has to be attached. I'm worried about the wood breaking down over time as people climb in and out of the tent or as I bounce down bumpy roads for hundreds of miles.

Yes, I'm definitely hoping to use the tent at Burning Man. It's pretty heavy duty, so I think it might stand up against playa dust well. I'm super stoked about the tent. The more I poke through it the happier I am with my purchase. This weekend is the CO regional burn and I'm hoping to use the tent there. I've got a lot to get done this week to reach that point, but I think I can make it.

Since I'm going to have the van around Burners, I also want the roof top platform to be extra sturdy... since there's a good chance I might end up with a pile of people up there dancing... naked.

[Christopher Thwaites]

Suggestion...if you have room to carry 4 jack stands you can use them to stabilize the van. With even 2 people up top the van will move around. 3/4" is overkill but it's the rack itself that is important. Is it a gutter mount? Does it have at least 3 crossmembers? It should be fine. Also,If everybody is naked that's less weight.

[Zaskoda]

Originally Posted by Christopher Thwaites

Suggestion...if you have room to carry 4 jack stands you can use them to stabilize the van. With even 2 people up top the van will move around. 3/4" is overkill but it's the rack itself that is important. Is it a gutter mount? Does it have at least 3 crossmembers? It should be fine. Also,If everybody is naked that's less weight.

I only have 2 stands right now... I guess I could pick up 2 more. I was thinking of building some stands into the bumpers later... I need to look at pics of how other people have done this.

The rack is extremely solid. It has 8 cross members of square steel 1.25" tubing and is gutter mounted. I believe its rated for 2500 pounds, though I'm having trouble finding the "official" rating.

[Christopher Thwaites]

You could use your bottle jack as one then get another stand or a jack. I've never seen stabilizers built into an SMB. Some kind of crank operated scissor jack could work. Maybe a swing away trailer tongue jack welded to the bumper at the corners....??? UGLY

[teeots]

There were a couple of de-commissioned news vans on ebay a while back. Dual rear wheel 4x4 (6x6?) v-10 fords to be exact. they both had trailer jacks on the front bumpers. They looked like ordinary manual hand crank trailer jacks that travelled in the horizontal position, then pull the pin and swing down... next thing you know there are lots of naked people on the roof of your van.

[Christopher Thwaites]

Well....not on top of my van!!! Might get sun block on my Solar Panel.

[campervanbeethoven]

Hey Z, just was thinking, instead of that pressure treated ply for the roof how about 2x6 redwood deck planks ripped down to 3/4. Redwood is pretty light and weather resistent and it would look sweet. just a thought.

[Zaskoda]

I may consider other wood for the platform, but I definitely want to use the heavy duty 3/4" for the mount around the tent itself. I set the boards up in the rack this evening as a test fit.





The underside is black, but the top will have outdoor carpet. I left lips in the front... I might mount lights there.

[Zaskoda]

Bummers on top of bummers. I'm at work and probably will be through much of the weekend, preventing me from attending the festival. It is, unfortunately, not because my team failed to get their work accomplished... but because other teams in my company did not get their pieces done in time. It's also kept me away from working on the van.

I'm doing better than some of my coworkers. The other guy who was going to attend the festival with me worked until about 6am this morning. Around 8am, he was jolted out of bed when his carbon monoxide detector went off due to a low batter. He just got back into the office a couple of hours ago and we're trying to track down a huge bug.

Meanwhile, you can check out the two sites we've launched:
http://na.apb.com
http://eu.apb.com

Hopefully when we get through this game launch, I can make up these lost van hours.

[Zaskoda]

She held together for one more trip:



My back door pops loose.. not open, just loose. I keep thinking I've fixed it, but it still did it a few times on the trip. I also have a fuel issue. I have fuel shifting tanks and sputters while driving. I have some rough starts followed by a puff of black smoke. My tanks are extremely pressurized when I go to fill up, much more than I normally expect. My front fuel pump whines a bit when I turn the key to accessory while the bank tank is selected. At first I thought it was a fuel pump, but now I'm wondering if it's a filter.

Anyway, the event was crazy surreal fun:



I brought a couple of friends with me. One was a coworker and fellow burner. The other was an Australian girl I found standing in the road in front of my house taking pictures of the clouds one day. Turns out she's an astrophysicist who really likes Alice in Wonderland. Who woulda thought?

It's a good thing I didn't bother with the roof top tent as I wouldn't have gotten to use it anyway. I had to park pretty far from camp. And there wasn't much naked dancing going on either, probably because of the violent hail storms that kept rolling through.



We didn't sleep much. Between the constant music and storms, it was never really very quiet. After the first night, about 1/3 of the attendees went home. Another big chunk left right after the effigy burned. I'd say that less than half of us made it until Sunday.

When we packed up and went home, I used 4 wheel drive to get in close to camp. I didn't need it, but it helped prevent the amount of damage I normally would have otherwised caused. It's a leave no trace event.



That hot shower when I got home was blissful. I'm still drying out gear and repacking. Tomorrow I drop the bear off at a different glass shop to fix the epic fail done by the previous shop. After that, I'll see about getting the visor attached. Then... I'm not sure... I have a lot of cleaning up and organizing to do while I figure out the next build step.

p.s. Here are all the pics from the trip...