Electric pop top

[popeyemth]

Have a crank up pop top on our Shadow Cruiser truck camper.Would like to convert to an electric motor to crank it up. Anyone have info links or knowledge about this please speak up. I'd hate to have to quit using this great camper but it's hard on my body to crank it up.


Sorry for the poor picture
Thanks,Mike

[whizbang]

Have you kept your lift system lubed?

For years I did the annual spring maintenance on my lift system, but got busy and out of the habit 2 or 3 years back. A couple weeks ago, I noticed that my roof was very difficult to crank up.

After I lubed with silicone spray, it flew right up.

+1 on the longer extended crank handle and/or the electric drill.

[Steve_in_29]

Since 2007 or so Outfitter went with a power roof that uses a modified jack motor. The motor is mounted at the end of the mechanism's screw drive. It does make working the roof effortless but also MUCH slower. No pictures as I would need to disassemble part of my camper to get them.

If you go with a drill ENSURE the drill has a low-speed/high-torque setting and that the drive gear is fully meshed as you will quickly wear it out otherwise.

[cewillis]

Here's what I did to approximately half the crank effort needed. Combined a spare roof crank and a spare jack crank - grinding the jack crank shaft to fit very tight into the roof crank shaft tube.
The longer crank just barely clears when starting to crank the roof up, and when finishing letting it down.

[_DJ_1]

Someone here posted earlier of a crank handle they made. He extended the handle quite a bit for more leverage. I think he could have gone into business from the amount of us here that wanted one. I was also thinking of doing that. When my canoe and other stuff are on the roof those first couple of cranks are getting brutal!! I would buy an additional crank and take it to a welding shop for a longer handle, keeping the original for a spare.

I would not use a power drill. These gears are not the most robust and fear they won't last long with that much torque and speed.

FWIW Northstar has come out with a power top on some of their models.

[Old_Days]

I would use a 20 volt cordless 3 speed drill. Then see if you could buy a bit that you could use,or cut the handle off.