Well the man forced me to work the next several normal work days even though there holidays so I took advantage of the man.
Brought all the materials in I knew what my measurements were going to be. The hole and the roof is going to be 52 in wide 9 ft 6 long.
The roofing piece is going to be 5 foot by 10 foot so that I'll give me about 3 in of overhang all the way around.
I made the lower boxed in assembly, the short vertical rise is where the fabrics going to get connected with velcro . The flat section that's about 2 inches wide that's going to be drilled bolted after epoxy is laid down, It will be glued and screwed to the top all the way around 100% waterproof!!
The next vertical drop is for the lifting mechanism wherever I'm going to end up bolting that on.... then the next horizontal plane is the bed platform support/slide..
surprisingly enough having the lower brackets made ended up being less than $100, look better, cheaper, and are much stronger than if I took three pieces of angle iron and made the W shape out of them!!
I think I figured out the trick to popping the tops for vans!! that frame box is now structural not merely just the tracks for the top in the bed to rest in!!!!
I also made a mirrored (2in smaller in each dimension) a section for the roof that will be a stiffener and gives a backing plate to the roof rack running rails sandwiching the 20 gauge steel making it much more rigid and be where fabric is mounted...the whole roof fabric section will be velcroed in place and be one length of material that velcros where it overlaps its own tail end.
I'm looking to have the top cut probably later this weekend or early next week definitely before New Year's.