RTT mounting options

So yesterday I mounted my RTT to my 4R for the first time and realized it was an epic pain in the ass. The amount of room you have to tighten the nuts is barely enough for a wrench. Just curious if anybody has found a better way to mount their tent?

I have a Gobi Stealth and a CVT tent; the Tepui mounting hardware pictured below is identical to what CVT uses. I know other tent/rack combos have better mounting options but I havent seen anything that looks like it will work with the round crossbar and CVT mounting rail.


thanks

 

Oh man, good luck with the Gobi. I just sold my tent and the buyer wanted to mount it up to his rack - a Gobi. It was nightmarish. As you said, there is no room whatsoever to get fingers in there.

I think he ended up getting some sort of iKamper adapter to make it easier. He's on here, @courtneygolfman , maybe message him if the summoning of him to this thread doesn't produce him.

Personally - from my observations of his Gobi - I would weld up Gobi load bars so the bars don't have two floating C clamp pieces on each end that you have to try and manipulate and drop a bolt through. Weld one of those two floating pieces to the load bar on each side, making it self supporting when you set it on the top of the rack. Then you can bolt the tent to the bars off the rack, lift the entire assembly onto the rack, slide it to where you want it front to rear, and then bolt in the bottom piece of the floating C clamp connector thingy onto the top half of the load bar two on each side. Still a PITA to get a tool in there but at least you aren't also struggling to hold three things together and support the weight of the tent pushing down, and you'll be working at the sides rather than the center. I attached a super-sweet artists rendering of WTF I am talking about below.



If I were going to keep running a RTT there's no way I'd also have a Gobi. What's the point? You can accomplish the same thing with the factory rack and some straight Thule, Yakima, Inno, etc bars, for a fraction of the cost and no waiting - plus it takes about 4 minutes to bolt the tent onto those bars with ample room underneath for hands and tools. You also lose almost all the storage of the Gobi with the RTT in place.

Again, not what you asked, but all I got pics of is my former setup - factory rack, aftermarket INNO crossbars ($250 on etrailer and top quality stuff), and the RTT. Mounting hardware is the stock ROAM RTT hardware as pictured in your post.

 

Check Front Runner Outfitters... I had a Tepui on a Front Runner 3/4 rack and that was also a pain in the ass to get mounted up, found out about these after I sold that tent...




https://www.frontrunneroutfitters.c...nts-awnings/quick-release-tent-mount-kit.html

 

When I used to work for ARB and we'd mount and unmount RTT's on all sorts of vehicles, it was a massive PITA. That's where I learned real fast that a full roof rack isn't a great idea with a RTT. 2 cross bars like @MeefZah said makes life so much easier. On the Hummer H3, we pretty much had to unbolt the full length rack, mount the tent to it, then mount the rack back to the mounting brackets. What should have been 10-15mins was hours long after trying the long way first.

I'd give CVT a call and see if they have a good suggestion for you. Maybe leaving the 2 mounting bars of the RTT bolted to your rack, then reattaching the tent to those rails each time would be easier?

Or you could buy a 2nd set of cross bars to add some height to it to be able to get hands and tools in there easier.