UP ON THE ROOF!
The problem in question was that I needed a platform on the roof of the car that I could stand on to take photographs over the roadside vegetation when on my touring trips. The platform would also need to be able to carry building supplies for DIY projects, mount an awning for camping trips, and carry my TRED recovery boards or a roof storage bag.
However… the existing height of the vehicle with the slight lift from the Old Man Emu suspension meant that on mud tyres I only had a few millimetres clearance under my garage door, not enough in other words for the sort of conventionally-mounted roof racks you can buy ‘off-the-shelf’ these days.
My bright design idea was to have a platform hanging inside the roof rails, so that it was no higher than the top of the rails, and to include brackets to take a removable awning. For the sheer fun of doing so, I decided to make it myself.
Five-stage process
After weeks of serious design – that is walking around in a daze talking to myself – the build fell into five sections:
• The roof platform
