Winding up issues with pop top

[laner]

Hi Everyone.
Im new to Campers and Im hoping im in the right place.

Ive just bought this camper for the fmily so we can go on some much needed holidays after I restore it.

Im under the impression its a Chesney brand and the issue im having is actually getting the top up.
When I bought it, the top was already up and all I had to do was lower it before I towed it away (wasnt too difficult to lower) but, in retrospect its obvious that the owner didnt want me to lift it up and find out that there were issues somewhere in the mechanism, or so it seems.

It has a manual winch at the front on the A-Frame that has two wires that go underneath the camper and connect to the beds on the inner most part of the bed base via some blocks/pullys. ( a pretty common setup?)

When I loosen the cables off at the winch, I am able to open the top about 30cms at either end (never both ends at the same time) but then it appears to jam and not go any higher/feels like it weighs a ton!! I rang the guy back who sold it to me and asked him how to do it/if there is a trick and he recons you "wiggle' it while lossening the cables of and it will just pop up. Surprise! Still didnt work!

I feel that if I had 5 or six guys to help me lift it, It would probably be easy, but that wouldnt help me if I wanted to take the Missus (very petite) and my 1 year old camping.

So far I have removed the canvas to the outside so that it isnt stuck in any of the scissor pivots that hold the roof on.

I have checked that all the winch cables are loose and not jammed anywhere.

I have Stood inside the camper and tried to mnhandle the roof up! OUCH!
Next im going to be forced to remove all the bolts that hold the roof on and remove the roof and try and find the issue that way.

As i said, Im new to campers but could there be something very basic that Im overlooking? It dosnt seem to have any spring setup that ive read about Jayco pop tops having. Just seems like there are cables and thats it.
I cant find anywhere on the camper where it might have to be manually wound up either.
It definately wouldnt surprise me in todays day and age, but, Id hate to think that this guy sold me the camper knowing this issue was there without telling me!

I bought it for a really decent price so im happy to have some issues but the common decency to tell me would have been the gentlemanly thing to do!

Thanks heaps for any help.

LJ

[dosse]

G'day Laner

Welcome to the fourm, My only advise would be to take it back to the seller ( if not to far away ) or ask the seller to come over and show you the trick to it. Regards dosse.

[laner]

Ummm, yeah about that....They live about 5 hours drive away but he has shown a very active disinterest in instructing me how to wind it up over the phone. All he said was: "ive never had that much trouble getting it up (tee hee) and all you should do is wiggle it while you try and get it up (Tee hee hee!)!" but it shows no signs that it wants to wind out by itself. I can completely loosen off the cables and it dosnt want to go up at all and when I manually try to lift it it feels unbelievably heavy. There is no way I can lift it and doubt anything less than 4 VERY strong men could either.
First of all I should probably ask...Do these thing usually go up by themselves when you unwind them? Is that how they re supose to work?

Thanks for your help.

Laner

[firefighter]

G'day laner

Welcome to the forum

We do have a sister forum.......... classic caravans......2 of our members are moderators of this forum .........quite a few members on that forum have wind up campers ......... you could join them and try for some answers....this forum caters for classic caravans 1970 to 1980

ditzygypsy.proboards.com/

cheers
f/f ;D ;D ;D ;D