| Loading / Unloading a large roof tent! | |
Roof tents are great! 
However, installing or removing a large (70kg+) lump, onto or off the roof of an L322 isn't for the faint hearted, unless you are lucky enough to have several 'heavies' at your beck and call.
My particular roof tent is the Autohome Columbus (medium extra-long) in black. At 2.30m x 1.45m, it's virtually identical to the 'Official Land Rover' accessory, but it's over 10% wider than the one which graces the Solihull brochure, which is only 2.30m x 1.30m. That's six inches wider in old money, and it means that there's a good bit more space for various elevated antics in the middle of nowhere... 
Having kept this unit on the roof of my old Vogue for several years, I decided to invent a way of removing the tent over the winter months and refitting it to the Westie when the weather improved. The problem is getting the unit far enough away from the car, in case of accidents and slips, to avoid damage to the vehicle. This meant designing something on the back of a fag-packet and trotting along to a local aluminium fabricators to see if they could develop my idea. Here is what they made for me:
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The two long bars slide into the ends of the two rearmost Rhino Rack bars via the two flat lugs, the two cylindrical lugs provide a fulcrum point beyond the tailgate. The shorter cyclindrical bar fits into the protruding lugs for additional rigidity.
Stacking three spare wheels to rest the back of the tent on, the front was loaded onto the lower tailgate. I then stood on the tailgate while Mrs C stood at the back ready to push.
I hoisted the front of the tent up to the fulcrum and rested it there while my unwilling assistant kept it steady on the wheel stack. Then it was simply a case of extrocating myself from under the unit and getting to the back where we both just pushed it up to the balance point and the nose dropped gently onto the Rhino bars under its own weight. One of the dogs duvets was used for extra protecion too!
Thereafter, it was just a case of positioning it correctly across all three bars and tightening it down. Job done!
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Removal is simply the reverse of the above. The older I get, the more I realise that people confuse wrinkles for wisdom 
Last edited by JMC on 27th Mar 2022 10:41pm. Edited 1 time in total
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27th Mar 2022 9:46pm
You could go into business selling these !! The best ideas are very often the simple ones.
