Thread: Pop top and elevated bed

Hi,
It is amazing what air will lift.
Tas Fire has what looks like heavyweight rubber hotwater bottles that can lift a fire truck with air from a breathing apparatus air tank.
Cheers

Originally Posted by 123rover50

Why have an elevated bed. You have heaps of room. More than me. My bed is on top of storage and I can lift it up as its on hinges to get into the box underneath. Or if late I can still get into bed without popping the top.

IMG_2873 by Keith Cree, on Flickr

I’m not sold on the idea, Keith, just trying stuff out. Thing is, I may find myself having to live in the thing for a while. Ok if I go north I guess.

Tins I've played around with those poptop air lifters, mainly sorting out problems with the "specialists" install on a friends small poptop van. They work well at lifting the poptop but would not lift anything much heavier as I reckon the "bags" would split/burst.
The van had an a/c nad a couple of small solar panels on the roof plus a TV aerial and a couple of hatches and while it lifted it ok it did seem to be approaching its limit.
The "bags" were just a premade vinyl tube which had the ends folded over and screwed to a mounting bracket at the appropriate height and the airline ran around the outside of the lip at the bottom of the skirt. Air was supplied by a small ARB type compressor which had a pressure limiting switch so it just started and ran until the pressure was reached and by then the poptop was hopefully up. I never tested the pressure reached as there was no easy way to connect to the air with a gauge. The bags could easily be squeezed by hand when inflated so it wasn't much, the scissor lifts and gas struts still held the poptop in the raised position once it was up, you then pulled it down by hand as per normal.
I too wonder why you would want to lift the bed "permannently" in an Oka as the poptop would need to be at least twice it's current height to give any usuable space for seating etc and headroom in the bed when it was up as the existing roof height is only around 1400mm.
Then there is the thing about us old farts climbing ladders especially when a midnight pee is taken into account.
If it was to give usable living space for daytime use then there are a couple of Oka's that have done that but the ones I've seen have actually hinged the bed and folded it up against the back wall which gives a rear lounge but totally blocks the back wall to windows etc.
If you wanted to just lift it up out of the way into the roof space during the day then a combination of four electric actuators would do that easily, maybe an electric lift from its present position to normal Oka roof height and then detach the front lifters and hinge the bed up from the rear lifters until the front is up against the ceiling, The second lift could be done with a another pair of actuators.

Thanks Peter. The ones I've seen on smaller poptops have the bed raised with the roof and get pulled down independently. I've pretty much given this whole idea a miss. I'm trying to work it out so I can have a bigger bed than what I have now. Mine is laid out across the back of the OKA, which makes it uncomfortable for me at 185 cm. But, most of the storage is under it. Lots of wife friendly drawers inside, but I no longer have one of those and I want to remove them. I now have a proper OKA rear body section with a hatch I am going to fit, and the hatch will give access to the under bed area which I can now only get to by lifting the mattress and it's support up on hinges. Very inconvenient and requires remaking the bed each time. But removing the bed completely would lose me the storage under it.... Vexing.

Hi,
Looking at the lifter video, I suspect the bags are 64mm fire hose. I think the fittings would fail before that burst as they can run at 150 + psi.
Cheers

If you are going to modify there are some ideas here. How practical I will let others decide

This Two-Story RV Has a Pop-Up Sunroom and an Elevator - RV.com

Originally Posted by 3toes

If you are going to modify there are some ideas here. How practical I will let others decide

This Two-Story RV Has a Pop-Up Sunroom and an Elevator - RV.com

A deck!! Heck, I've got room for one of those!

Originally Posted by Tins

A deck!! Heck, I've got room for one of those!

/mind boggling/


The elevator would no doubt have an UP /Down switch so if one wants "extra vehicular activities"

one could simply lay/lie in bed & press the switch rapidly. It may bugger up the switch but shirley the pain would be worth it?

Remember, you saw it here first.