My OzTrail Camper6 Journeys and Mods

[Robbks]

Along came a great idea to get out of the old tent and fit an Oztrail Camper6 Top to my 6x4 trailer.

[EDIT - RB:
My car thread is here: https://offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=5991

[end edit]

New mods planned for the camper with the fitment of gas rings, Jerry holders, sliding rails for the heavy gear and Tropical Roof to the tent to keep the heat off.

 

[Ratbag]

Gidday Rob

Has your OzTrail Camper 6 got the silvered roof canvas like mine?

 

[Robbks]

Nah, mine is the older style,
Slightly thinner canvas than the newer ones and not silvered canvas.

The local Mitre 10 down here ordered a bulk batch of them years ago when Oztrail began production on the updated model. so they did a limited production run to fill their order of teh old style.
$900 was all it cost me at a Christmas sale, so add that to the $900 trailer I already had is a very cheap camper.
500mm High sided trailer needed some thinking about due to the height restriction of the camper-tent, so some 13" wheels and low profile tyres had to be fitted,
i'm still thinking of adding 1" lowering blocks to the leaf springs too.

The top is mounted with 10mm clevis-pins and R-CLips for quick-release fitting and removal when I need to use the trailer, i just unclip them, and slide it off the back.

 

[Ratbag]

^ Yeah, the 500 mm sides would cause nearly as much of a problem as the Subaru 16" rims and underslung axle do on mine.

Mine cost me around $2,410 delivered with sun room. Rebuilding the trailer added considerably to this figure ...

With 300 mm sides, I am limited with what can go in the trailer tub, but the tent base board is 880 mm to the ground at all 4 corners, so just fits for drop.

My trailer is a 7x4 with a lid, and the tent is held on by 10 x 3/8" cup head bolts. I can slide the lid and tent off the hinges, but need a small winch to take the 150+ Kgs combined weight!

I am yet to actually spend a night in mine, but this is getting closer by the day! :biggrin:

 

[Robbks]

Geez, I nearly slept in it in my backyard the day I fitted it..

the extra tub depth is really handy,
85 Litre Dune/ Waeco Esky is 450mm tall
it takes milk-crates easily
25L plastic water cubes

Got a 10.1" flat-screen too..

My next plan is to modify some sliders that will bolt up under the tray, so that I can sit the cooker and esky on it, but keep the tailgate closed,
Aswell as re-hang the tailgate so that it's a swinging unit.

My Dogs don;t mind it either

 

[Ratbag]

Geez, I nearly slept in it in my backyard the day I fitted it..

I would happily do that too! However, for such a large block, we have surprisingly little room for this kind of thing. Front yard is enclosed with a brick wall. The garage and house pretty much span the full frontage. The driveway is all paved. Putting it up at all requires a bit of imaginative use of concrete blocks and pergola posts!

the extra tub depth is really handy,

Yes, it certainly fits stuff more easily.

Thanks for the photos of yours. I have never seen mine properly set up!
I can see how your model is similar and yet quite different in some ways.

Some photos of mine set up in the driveway here:

https://www.offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=5644

[EDIT]

BTW, $900 was flaming superb buying!

Mine was RRP $1,950 for the tent alone (IIRC), and a further $750 for the sun room. I bought both together as a package deal for $2,150 + $260 freight from Sydney. The reason I bought both (apart from the much better price) was that I knew that the moment I ordered the tent, they would change the design slightly so that the current sun room wouldn't fit. They have ...

[end edit]

 

[Robbks]

Yep,
I managed to score the older-style "wall kit" without floor, which suits it perfectly for under $300 that was gathering dust in a local shop.
I only ever use one or two of the side walls,
the end wall is now used as a sun-screen that I velcro to the front of the camper, which also acts as a weather cover for the toolbox/ draw-bar
it really keeps the temps down inside

the Tropical roof is actually the 2.1x2.5m Oztrail Awning Extender, (which IS the silvered canvas)
It is tied off to the existing rope loops, and using a pair of dome-tent flexible poles, keeps a small air-gap between the top and itself, so the airflow + shade really keeps the thing cool.

It's so fast and easy to set and pack up,
when winter is over, all my gear lives in it so we just chuck a couple of bottles of wine, some beers and bit of food in the esky
hook it up and bugger off somewhere for a night

My front annex is attached, so in those cases I just fold it back over the top of itself and tie it off to the draw bar

 

[Ratbag]

All sounds good, Rob :ebiggrin:.

I'm certain that I will work out all sorts of these things within the first 24 hours of camping in mine, as others have said already ... :iconwink:. Hopefully I can learn some more tricks from you since you have an extremely similar setup to my own.

It has crossed my mind (short trip, these days ... ) as to how effective the silvered canvas will be at keeping the heat down. I will keep your specific solution as a bookmark for future reference. I am going to visit Steve Holland at OzTrail in Brisbane when I (finally) get there. He's one of the engineers/designers there.

My model has huge windows all round. Three in each of the two main parts and lots more in the sun room annex walls, I believe. I haven't even unpacked the latter!

I have made a travelling cover cover out of a SCA PE tarp. As mine is always parked in the sun and weather, and the OM states that while the travelling cover and tent are made from UV and weather resistant materials, they are not meant to be exposed to these 24/7. I priced replacement travelling covers at between $400-1,000!

It will also protect the travelling cover proper from on-road damage to a large degree. At $14 from SCA, it is just a tad less than the abovementioned figures!

If you wanted to fit Subie rims and hubs, you could possibly fit a drop axle and rearrange the springs and hangers. Just a thought. This also depends on how much clearance you have to your existing guards.

BTW, if you want to start a new thread in "Campers and Vans" here:

https://offroadsubarus.com/forumdisplay.php?f=63

I will move all our CT related chatter over there, rather than it cluttering up your car journal thread :iconwink:.

 

[Ratbag]

Yep,
I managed to score the older-style "wall kit" without floor, which suits it perfectly for under $300 that was gathering dust in a local shop.

That's also a flaming great price, mate! Very good buying for both parts indeed.

I only ever use one or two of the side walls,
the end wall is now used as a sun-screen that I velcro to the front of the camper, which also acts as a weather cover for the toolbox/ draw-bar
it really keeps the temps down inside

I haven't noticed if mine has Velcro along the front edge or not. I must look. That's a really good idea and usage if mine has the Velcro ...

the Tropical roof is actually the 2.1x2.5m Oztrail Awning Extender, (which IS the silvered canvas)
It is tied off to the existing rope loops, and using a pair of dome-tent flexible poles, keeps a small air-gap between the top and itself, so the airflow + shade really keeps the thing cool.

Yeah, almost anything that keeps the direct sun off the roof is going to help immeasurably. I suspect that I might find that useful too, notwithstanding the silvered canvas roof on mine. Thanks for that idea ... .

It's so fast and easy to set and pack up

I have already found that. I am 65+ y.o., so this is of paramount importance to me.

My front annex is attached, so in those cases I just fold it back over the top of itself and tie it off to the draw bar

That's what mine is like too. Attached with zips and Velcro.

 

[Robbks]

Nah, the front edge didn;t have velcro, I bought some already sticky-backed stuff then attached it with quick-grip on advice from the local canvas place.

 

[Ratbag]

^ Hmmmm. I would have thought that Selleys Multigrip would work better than Kwikgrip. It takes longer to set, but doesn't creep the way contact glues tend to.

Good idea, nonetheless.

Even just attaching an old bed sheet or a piece of shade cloth to the tent loops would keep the heat down a lot.

I am thinking of fitting a fold-down bed head in mine. There are some days when that's the limit of what I can do ... .

Like your huge portable TV :rotfl:.
What do you drive it with? A laptop?

 

[Robbks]

It's just a 10" Galaxy Tablet,

Load up a few movies onto the SD card before you leave incase the weather is against you. Also has a heap of music on it too and the WikiCamps App

 

[Ratbag]

^ I have an HP tablet the same size. Only thing that I have against it is that it has Android 4.4.2 installed as the OS. The version where Google decided to lock everyone out of their own microSD cards ...

You might be interested in my trailer rebuild thread here:

https://offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=3352

It has only taken me a mere 3 years to get to this point where I am almost ready to take it all on its maiden voyage ...

In spite of all indications to the contrary, I do NOT have a thing for pain!

 

[Robbks]

My simple, 48AH battery bank.
15A regulator.
I just need to finish off the fuses between battery and reg.

I only have a 30Watt panel, but i'm only ever drawing a phone/ tablet/ camera charger and a few LED strips,

 

[Robbks]

Another mod today.
Couple of Forester tailgate struts to help lift it up.
They're not strong enough to hold it. But do provide enough assistance to open it up one handed.

 

[Ratbag]

Gidday Rob

The struts on my lid are each 1,000 Ncm!

I can open it pretty easily. Much more importantly, I can actually close it by myself! :iconwink: :biggrin:.

 

[Robbks]

Yeah unsure on the rating on these,
problem is though the falt mounting angle reduces the effective lift.
I may even move the mounting so it's into the mud-guard, I'll see how it goes.
easy to open, but does close by itself,
I don;t have hinges on the far side, just Clevis pins through the base-board and a hole in the folded lip on the trailer

 

[Ratbag]

Easy enough to fit hinges on the opposite side. That's what mine has.

Mine has the opposite problem. I need to cut part of the outer sleeve of the hinge away with an angle grinder so that I can put a split pin through and a washer over the end of the pin to stop the lid gradually moving forward when I open and shut it, if that makes sense ... It's been a very, very difficult week for me.

 

[Robbks]

Yeah, I'm giving it to my old man next week.
He's going to fit tube and pin hinges to the tailgate to covert it to a swinging or folding gate.
And make up some more for the top.

 

[Ratbag]

Just make sure that the pin/s on the lid have some kind of locking mechanism.