Show us your camper

Ok so I guess im not the only one who tows a camper with thier Navara so whos got some pics of thier camper to post up and any ideas for improving the campers to make things easyer.

I only have a couple of pics of mine but Ive had it since new prob about 5 years now. Its a little small for longer stays but I now use my 30sec tent on the side to add an extra room.

I havnt got a pic of it attatched to the car but im going away tomorow so if I remember I will take some then.

1 little thing I did was make a top for the sink to give a little exra space when cooking other than that I havent had to change much, I guess I wouldnt mind a box on the draw bar but there isnt much room there for that so it would take a little thought to get something that works.

Good topic Simsy, I'll have to post a couple on the weekend of ours. Theres always a couple of things that could be modified,

Hoo Roo

Here's a couple of mine, at Landcruiser Mountain Park and Yeppoon.

Titanium with Gooseneck Caravan

Its not my rig, but wish it was. Saw it today at Kingston SE.

Boss,i like the tractor being used as a tv antenna.Nice touch.

navarian said:

Boss,i like the tractor being used as a tv antenna.Nice touch.

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I spent ages getting that in the shot.

navarian said:

Boss,i like the tractor being used as a tv antenna.Nice touch.

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Ha ha, I was going to say the same thing! Perfect shot.

Cool Home away from home not real good off road though im guessing. I had a good look around over the long weekend and looking at the average boat trailer gives me some ideas for fitting a box on the front. Most boat trailers have the v drawbar extended with a large straight bar up to about 1m long and use a slightly different handbrake handle, this would be easy to fit to mine to extend the drawbar so I can move my spare and gas bottle forward to make room for the box. the question is how much would extending the drawbar by say 500 - 600mm effect the towing of my camper if at all, So if anybody has done similar some advice would be great.

Extending the drawbar will certainly make it easier to reverse, and put less weight on your towball (until you put a big toolbox on it that is lol) I can't see to many negatives of a longer drawbar.

Some Piccies first, Bigriggen near Rathdowny and Flannagans Reserve just up the road from Bigriggen. Very different surroundings as you can see.







The Customline has been great. What would we change?. The sloping roofline really bugs us now as we are fairly tall. Looking at a way to maybe get the annex modified to give some extra headroom. Plus it is a 2 piece annex, and is a buggar to zip on/off. The mods will include making it into a 3-4 piece, where only the end walls for example can be put up, not the whole lot.

We also will probably get one of those OzTrail deluxe gazebos (3x3mtr) this week to set up outside. ( Have to test it at Landcruiser Park)

Hoo Roo

Not a true off road camper, but this is our new Jayco Eagle.......



Setup down @ Hopkins River in Warrnambool, VIC.

Boyd's Bay Tweed coast

Was going to ask if my Golf count's it's off road coil over shock

Still don't Know how to make pic's Big

hey has anyone had much to do with rooftop campers looking at getting an ARB one mounted onto my cab Roof they say it is do-able, trying to find photos of ones around first though..
Cheers

Dont know about mounting it to the cab mate I think the roof can only suport about 95kgs as is maybe on the back with some better bars would be ok. Most gutterless roofs cant suport much weight on thier own.

Raywise that is one huge tent trailer must take a bit of effort to put up and I dont mind the jayco type of campers outher than the whole sleeping in the air thing im a fairly big bloke and I just dont trust those 2 little poles. But the whole caravan setup of them is good and prob a bit more cumfy I guess.

Funnily enough we were just talking about that before. Even though we have only had the camper trailer for 2 years, I'm thoroughly sick of the time and effort it takes to put it all up and then tear it down/pack it away etc.

Give me a small van that you just pull up in, throw out an awning etc and have a beer. It takes us around 2 hours to set it all up properly.

Oh well, live and learn

Mine is a fliper type so just pull up and throw over the floor a couple of press studs and your done in say 5 mins. add about 15mins if you want the anex up. But there isnt much room for guest good for me and the missus though. Was camping about 150ks away from home at easter woke up at 730am and was home at 1010 so putting it away is easy as well but we have had a lot of practice I guess.

pistolpete said:

hey has anyone had much to do with rooftop campers looking at getting an ARB one mounted onto my cab Roof they say it is do-able, trying to find photos of ones around first though..
Cheers

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My mate had one on the roof of his Ranger, they don't weigh all that much really, as long as they are anchored down well enough and don't slide on their brackets (i.e. build up momentum), I remember ARB saying something about that to do with the bars he was using.
It did look absolutely terrible though, put me right off them.
If I was to put one on a tub back ute i'd have a frame built for it that held it up so its fairly level with the roofline, should still leave room for stuff in the tub

First, my camper - a full van, we tried tents and stuff and it was too much mucking about when the objective was to just get somewhere and relax!



The beauty of it is that if we're long hauling, let's say like we did at Christmas (you can see a couple more shots from the album here), we can just pull over and have lunch without any setup time at all. Or just stop and use the toilet.

Yes the thing weighs more, yes we use more fuel because it's larger and displaces more air space, but for the convenience, I wouldn't go back for anything. The double axle setup is so much more stable on the road.

As for the roof mounted setups, they'd be fine except for as mentioned earlier, the roof has a load limit. That limit is a gross limit: add up the weight of the support frame, tent and its contents (meaning YOU). At an average weight of 64Kg (I think that's what the government uses), putting 2 people up there overloads it without roof bars or tent.

I might one day be convinced that there is an off-road setup that is worth having, but I've pulled this van through muddy tracks and shallow water with few issues.

If I could change something, I'd go for 16" wheels and may look at the rocker-based leveling suspension (my van has 4-wheel independent trailing arm suspension with independent leaf springs and shocks). It's nice, except if one wheel lifts, the other wheel takes the full load and I'm not completely comfortable with that.

Another thing I'd change in a heartbeat: the quantity of water I'm carrying. I have two 59 litre tanks - it's not enough. I'd like to have double that, at least, but would settle for an extra 60 litres hung over the back end. I'm looking forward to the day when we can manage ourselves into a Travelhome, that has a pair of 170 litre tanks.

Other than a slight rearrangement of the inside that we'd like to do, this van is perfect for us - we're very happy with it and now that my diesel is getting a few km under its belt, we're not using as much fuel to haul it. That may also be due to my learning how to drive the diesel more economically too, as this is my first oiler.

Would I go and get myself a flip-out camper? Probably not. There are places I'd like to go and see that are difficult to do with the van behind, but for those short stints, we can chuck a tent in the back and "rough it" a bit!

G'Day, Our Jayco Camper pictured above only takes us about 15mins to setup then another 15 mins if you want the full annexe with it also, so from pulling up with the wife we can have it all ready to go in 15-30 mins depending on what we need or want at the time. As for the 2 poles holding up the beds, they are actually pretty strong coupled with the canvas valcro'd under the marine ply they are rated to hold 250kg-300kgs per end, Im not small either and it holds me and the wife just perfectly even with some extra pounding once in a blue moon........

But yes if we had the money or down the track even we will probably upgrade to a full size or non-popup type van like a Jayco Expanda or something.