Custom Truck Canopy Build

[kselkhunter]

Thought I'd share progress on the custom canopy build.  Not sure which section to put it, so put it here.  Mods please move if it should be elsewhere.


Decided to build a custom canopy for my truck.  My old SnugTop served me well for years.  I bought an old TruckVault off a fellow HuntWA member years ago and used that as a sleeping platform.   One of my challenges is my wife bought me a 14ft Hobie fishing kayak for my birthday a handful of years ago.  And taking out the truckvault to put the kayak in the bed with bed extender all the time got tedious, so wanted a way to mount it on the roof (am installing boat rollers, etc.).  Plus I wanted a more insulated option, and some more headroom.   This is what started my custom truck canopy build.


The goal for the build was to have the following traits:

• Hold 200lb+ kayak on the roof
  Be <8ft tall to fit in my garage and garages that are 8ft max height
  <300lbs for the canopy (excluding truck vault weight in the bed)
  Solar panels on roof that charge a battery
  Battery's purpose is to keep a portable 12V freezer/fridge running.  Also to power some USB devices like phone, InReach, etc.
  Freezer/fridge purpose is to keep my ice packs frozen
  I will rotate the freshly frozen ice packs into my old Yeti cooler that has always been in my truck to keep food and game cool.  The concept is I can stay out as long as I want on hunting and fishing trips and not have to worry about driving to town to get ice.
  Insulated wall panels, plus roof vent.
  Ability to haul extra fuel
  Extra storage for gear - hold all of my camping/backpacking gear, hunting clothes, BBQ/stove, water, etc.
  Ability to tarp off of the back and sides for "awnings" for bad weather outdoor space for cooking, sitting, etc.   Hence the Ubolts on the roof beams so can keep kayak tied down and tarp off to the sides at the same time....
  Lightweight as possible to minimize impact on gas mileage.

We had a new garage expansion planned that was supposed to be finished in October 2020.......goal was to have the canopy done by Christmas 2020....alas, the backlog for structural engineers and the permitting office meant we didn't break ground until March 2021.  Then various issues with the build....we still don't have a garage finished.  So in April I decided to start building the canopy on our covered front porch.....holy heck did I run into issues related to building outdoors.....


Materials:

• Aluminum frame - 1.5" square tubing (1/8" thick) for most of frame, 2" square 1/4" thick for the roof beams to hold the kayak & solar panels/etc. 
  1/4" Marine grade plywood skin
  Kevlar fabric and Fiberglass fabric epoxied onto the the plywood for strength and waterproofness
  Alpicool 12V fridge/cooler
  Renogy 200W solar panel/MPPT controller kit
  100Ah LifePo4 battery
  Backup gas generator (in case of winter camp/hunts don't provide enough solar)
  Truck Vault (old style that I already had) drawers/sleeping platform
  RV windows on all four sides.
  RecPro Rollover Bed hinge frame, so the bed can be turned into a bench or just flipped up out of the way.
  Double door rear entry (removed tailgate). 

In addition to the epoxied Kevlar/Fiberglass, I also applied Flex Seal rubber compound to seal the roof as well as put it on my bed platform.
Thinsulate insulation for inside the wall panels.  1/4" Foam board for the interior walls, to block thermal transfer through aluminum posts.
RotoPax fuel cannisters on each rear door, Jerry Cans on roof mounts (4 total)...14-24 gallons total capacity depending on which Jerry cans I go with.
Axe and shovel mounted on roof, space for traction boards as well but haven't bought those yet.
Custom cut gun foam in truck drawer to fit my guns.
LED lighting on interior, and LED external break light

The biggest decision was how to join the materials, and the fabrication process and order of manufacture.  As it's been a long time since I've welded, and having one of my degrees being in manufacturing engineering, I opted for an aluminum epoxy to join both the aluminum beams and the plywood.  At this thickness of Aluminum, the epoxy is actually stronger than a mechanical weld (just trust me on that, one of my technical specialties).  I also strengthened the key joints in the structural frame with angle aluminum and aluminum bolts that I epoxied in.  I used two types of metal Epoxy:  1) Alumibond, and 2) Loctite Epoxy Weld.  The Loctite is very fast cure time, so was used for small parts. Alumibond is longer cure time so was for larger bonding surfaces of both the aluminum but also to bond the plywood to the frame (reinforced by screws as well).


Fun fact: when building outdoors epoxy is like natures flypaper....oh my goodness I had to sand lots of dead bugs out of the darn epoxy.....   


Anyway, this was a brutal process due to the garage not being finished.  I just couldn't wait any longer as I need this thing done for my scouting trips this summer and definitely some of the hunting trips this fall.


Lessons Learned:

• Build indoors.  Man, I don't want to do this outdoor build ever again.....
  Either stop at Kevlar for epoxy and skip fiberglass layer.....OR buy a much larger squeegee.  Making a flat surface on the panel skins was a frustrating and tedious process for the walls and roof.  For the doors, I just did multiple Kevlar layers and didn't do fiberglass/epoxy sheen.....far easier to make look good....
  Don't try spray painting stencils on.  Yes, smart people already knew this fact....but my dumb behind had to learn the hard way and yeah that was a disaster.  One of the stencils had a chemical that reacted with my wall surface that took quite a bit of work to repair.  I switched to the decals in the photos. 
  A grinder with stainless steel cutting wheel is amazing.  Best tool to use for the project for key items. Tried a chop saw with blade specific for aluminum....that got old fast.  The grinder and hand wood saw got used 90% of the time on this build.   That and a drill press.
   

That's enough for now as I'm sure this is already too long.  Attached is the first photo of current status (can't figure out how to add more photos to this first post).  The canopy gets loaded on my truck this week, and then will finish out the interior work then and will post more photos later when the build is completed.  Will add more details about the build then and more photos of the interior.....

[kselkhunter]

Another build photo

[TVHunts]

Impressive build!  Looks very nice!

[Fl0und3rz]

That's pretty cool.  Well done.

[thinkingman]

Great information and cool build.
I love when people engage a new project and learn *censored* along the way.
Congrats!

[ASHQUACK]

When we were playing with glass and Kevlar for boats we would have to work outdoors cause the garage actually had cars in it. We'd build a visqueen box to keep the bugs out of the gelcoat.

[kselkhunter]

When we were playing with glass and Kevlar for boats we would have to work outdoors cause the garage actually had cars in it. We'd build a visqueen box to keep the bugs out of the gelcoat.

Yeah putting some kind of surround around it would have been smart.  Thankfully the bugs sanded out of the fiberglass and top epoxy layers.  And thank goodness there weren't any bug swarms when the Kevlar was going on, as you probably know that stuff isn't really sand-able.   Definite lesson learned though.   Am contemplating using the leftover Kevlar, fiberglass, and epoxy to make a kayak as a next project....

[kselkhunter]

Got the canopy mounted on the truck. Now to finish the interior, electrical, and hook up the solar power.

[carpsniperg2]

Cool stuff

[hunter399]

Definitely look good.
Looks like half and half.
Camper/canopy
I'm calling it a camopy.
Look great though.

[kselkhunter]

Definitely look good.
Looks like half and half.
Camper/canopy
I'm calling it a camopy.
Look great though.

Pretty much spot on....half canopy half camper.  I have a rollover bed inside (once I install it), on top of the truck vault drawers platform, and it's insulated.  I just went shorter height to try stay under 8ft to fit into the garage....plus my Hobie fishing kayak goes on the roof (once I install the boat rollers) so couldn't go too tall.  Has the freezer and cooler and water tanks.  Just missing a bathroom.  So your description is accurate.  I'm going to have to steal the "camopy" term.   

[kselkhunter]

Getting further along on interior finishing. The rollover bed/bench frame and cushions are in. Yeti cooler installed.  Electrical all installed and connected to solar panels and MPPT controller. Set the 12v fridge to freezer temp to see how many amps it pulls overnight in freezer mode. The bluetooth connection on these Renogy controllers is handy to monitor remotely.  Just waiting on the rest of thinsulate to arrive so can finish the last of the front wall insulation then panelling and then trim work and cleaning up the wiring, etc. But darn near done and ready for maiden voyage.  Need to get some more game cameras out.

[storyteller]

Nice job, fun reading all the details that you included about the project.   Do you have a guess as to how many hours you have into the build?

[Dan-o]

Man, that's a lot of work!

It looks really nice.   

[kselkhunter]

In terms of hours into the project?  Far too many....  :-)  I honestly didn't keep track.


Granted if I built a second one now it would probably only take 25%-50% of the time.  As much of my hours have been spent on learning, making mistakes, and fixing mistakes.   


It doesn't help that the engineer in me majorly overdesigned everything.  From the top structural bars for the kayak that can probably hold an elephant to.....


The solar setup....yep it's overdesigned....  I set the Alpicool cooler from ambient temp (90F out there when I put it in there) to 15F internal setting at 7pm last night.  Solar panels were still throwing some power as sun hadn't gone down yet.  So battery was at 99% when I checked before I went to bed.   I expected to wake up to around ~70-75% power levels on the battery......at 7:30am this morning the battery showed 100% power again.....  Granted the sun was already up and those panels were already showing 13W of power already in the app.....but wasn't expecting the battery to have already been recharged that quickly.....


Solar setup is the Renogy 200W kit with 40A MPPT controller.  100ah LifePo4 battery.  I was expecting the freezer to draw 3-4 Amps per hour overnight being set at 15F internal temp....this brand of freezer didn't publish much specs for power draw/temp setting... but I was expecting more draw than that.   The more expensive Dometic 12V coolers draw as low as 0.8-1 Amps per hour when set at 40F but draw up to 2-3 Amps per hour at freezer temps....I was expecting this cheap Alpicool brand to draw more Amps than a Dometic.  Apparently not.


Granted I planned the solar setup for worst case scenario with limited sun on a winter trip.  Even bought a small portable generator as backup power just in case.   But given how fast the solar panels are recharging the battery in indirect morning sunlight already, 200W of panel, 40A MMPT controller, and a 100aH battery is probably overkill.  Oh well, extra power is a good thing.