How To Set Up A Pop-Up Camper By Yourself (The Right Way!)

what's up everybody it's simon from like up i've been camping with a pop-up camper on and off for over 30 years and today i'm going to show you how i set up my pop-up camper step by step if you are thinking about getting a camper or if you just got one you're still learning how to set it up then i'm gonna teach you exactly how to do it every single step along the way in the right order so you don't mess anything up and even if you're a pop-up veteran i bet you're gonna learn a thing or two okay so i'm still hooked up i'm not level or anything i've just got the camper in the spot that i want the reason why i picked this spot is because you can see the electrical hookups are right over here we have water right behind us and all the hookups for the camper are always opposite the door so that's why um i'm kind of pushed up along that side of the pad i've got you know kind of a blacktop pad here and it looks more or less level and you always want to be off to one side anyway because you want to maximize as much of that pad for um kind of porch space you know hangout space and stuff if you have the ability to we've got a little bit of shade on this side too so i'm in the right spot so the first thing we need to do is level the camper before we unhook it we need a level left and right we do that by putting stuff under the tires on one side it's really simple so leveling blocks or i built a little ramp i'll show you that but before we can level it we have to get all of our stuff out so it's time to unlatch open the door and get all of our setup gear out which i keep stored right in front of the door so you don't have to crawl inside [Applause] okay now we need to check and see if we're level i keep this simple little device in my door this is a string level this is the cheapest simplest level that they make it's made for doing masonry work and yard work and so forth where you just that's this little hook hanging on a string right see if the string's level it's a string level it's also flat on the bottom and it makes the perfect little camper level all you need is a bubble anyway so you set it on the floorboard not on the roof you said it on the floorboard because that's the frame you set it going this way and we want to make sure it's level left and right so let's check it out just as i thought this is a level pad so i don't even need to use my ramps now these ramps this style i kind of combined from a couple different styles that i saw online and i love this it's made from two by eights it's made from two by eights uh actually just one big long two by eight cut up in a couple pieces screw them together and you put it in front because it's so much easier to go up a ramp forward than it is backwards so you just go back maybe like a foot or two um further than you want the camper to end up put the ramps in front and then whoop check it whoop check it again whoop if you really need to i've never had to use that third one but you know sometimes you can camp it in a rough spot so it's possible so we're just gonna store that underneath for now and uh it's time to drop the camper so then we're gonna level front and back once we get it all placed i have that um that jack stand right there the red one there's different styles of like you know jack stands and footings and whatnot they have them if you want to use your wheel they have like a little donut thing that the wheel sits on this one's been good to me i like it it's good enough you can set it on a cinder block even i just i like this style it's really stable it's worked out for me so what i'm going to do is i'm going to put the ramp underneath and then a trick i learned from a camping neighbor in our last trip to the rockies is if you have a rug lay the rug down first and then put your jack stands on the rug to hold the ends of the rug down brilliant doesn't get blown away doesn't get you know pushed around out of place stays in the same spot the whole trip so that's great i'm going to keep my level out because we're going to need to level front and back next so it's time to it's time to drop the camper and before i do that we're gonna chalk the wheels okay chock the wheels get my rug out drop the camper and then we'll level it front back foreign [Music] okay trailer's dropped it's not leveled yet but we are ready to level and then put the jack stands in my level comes out from that pocket in the door goes straight back into the pocket from the door because the last thing you want when you're setting up is trying to dig through all your stuff to get your level so keep a tiny level keep it really handy dedicated use and i'm telling you the string levels are great so okay jack stands are in they're all stabilized now i happen to have two that are built onto the frame and so i have two aftermarket ones they're fine all they're really doing is they're putting pressure kind of taking a little bit of pressure off the suspension putting pressure on the frame so that you have support on all four corners and all it really does is it just makes your experience in the camper a lot better you're not doing any of this you don't have to have your seat legs got some flies you don't have to have your seat legs because everything's really stable so it just really helps stabilize the camper because they're stabilizers so jack stands stabilizer same thing so now we know we're level and we're stable now it's time to lift you do you don't lift until you're level and stable because that could put more pressure on one corner than the other which you don't want to strain your lift system i'm just going to say that starting to get a little bit muddy because last time we packed broke camp in the rain and all my stuff got muddy tried to clean up as best we could but that's life so now it's time to lift i'm gonna get the crank ready and uh what we're gonna do for lifting is i'm gonna do three cranks and i'm gonna do a half or a quarter turn back and the reason why is so that the the cable doesn't bind up on itself on the winch so that's just a little precaution that you can take you can just crank a crank or crank a crank but um because it's such a critical system to a pop-up camper i tend to just go cautious and take really good care of it keep that cable greased that will help you out that'll help keep from keep it from fraying and keep it from wearing keep the pulleys on the inside from wearing because all it is is one long cable you know with a couple cables that come off of it and um and a bunch of pulleys and then a big winch in the front so it's pretty simple you know you just just keep it maintained keep some grease on that i mean you know you can spray it with white grease or something like that or just use like kind of an all-purpose grease keep that keep that cable greasy and then it won't bind on itself as much anyway so if you see me going up and then one back that's why okay so you saw me holding that green cable that's your indicator that tells you that you're at the right height so when that thing's tight you don't want to be tight like a guitar string you just want to be just barely stretched out straight and you got you know the right height we'll probably have to adjust that again man that trick can warm me up we'll probably have to adjust that again when we put the door down like a little micro adjustment but that gives us a right idea that we're in the right spot so now now it's time to pull the beds out [Music] [Laughter] every style camper has its own nuances and you'll learn them over time just by trial and error like we found that if once we get the beds all the way out we'll get the poles in we got to give it one last little tug to make sure it's all the way at the end of the track so that's just something we learned over time and there'll be things like that there's always kind of quirks and and differences between different makes and models and year models and all that kind of stuff so now i'm going to put in my supports my braces so this is these are my lift braces and these are just to fail safe in case the winch goes out in case the uh in case the cable goes out it's the middle of night or something like that you know what happens to that i've talked to somebody who saw it happen once thankfully nobody was inside somebody got hurt but he said it goes whoop like a cartoon so that roof will come down fast if there's anybody inside that could be a major major problem so this is a simple device to prevent that from happening in case your ellipsis system fails okay now i'm gonna put the door in uh the door rides on the ceiling and it's on on a big hinge on the front and so um what i'm gonna do is i have a a big tote full of all of our camping gear and that comes out first just because it's easier to get it out the door before the door's in there um another one of those things i learned with having to rearrange my hands kind of after the fact so i'm going to drop the door i need to close the door in order to do that and then uh and then we'll just start getting the canvas we gotta cover up um cover up all our posts and then um and then get all the canvas around the bottom of the beds ready so we'll do that okay so before i do the canvas and everything i do want to mention that the doors sometimes it's helpful in fact on my last camper this was especially helpful not this one so much but it's helpful when you're when you're putting the door into the bottom of the frame there's some pegs that go into some holes it's helpful to unlatch the top but not the bottom so keep the bottom door closed keep the top one unlatched so that you can separate the frame enough to be able to fit them in otherwise you'll be frustrated going okay i got one in oh no and then i got the other one in and back and forth so just unlatch the top and then you'll get those right in hook up hook them up and you're off and running [Applause] [Applause] all right every canvas is different i've had three different styles this one's velcro all the way around and pros and cons of that um yes the velcro lasts a long time but um this if the stitching from the velcro strip starts to pull away from the canvas it's harder to fix um i've had an elastic system where there was like elastic and like hooks that you just you just pull and you end up kind of pulling it pulling the elastic like a belt all the way around and hooking them on hooks and i've had buttons so i don't really have a favorite it's not really a deal breaker when i'm looking for a camper to buy but there are different styles there's different ways of hooking up the canvas depending on the make and model and you'll just learn years after time you know it just takes practice so now it's time to get the supports on the inside it's just one one long pole that's bent hooks into a bracket on the top and then pushes the frame bracket which folds down on a hinge push that up and we're popped out and we're pretty well done on the outside the rest is like folding the sink up and then um you know turning the the the dinette bed and back into a dinette and we're all set besides hooking up electrical hooking up water so i'll do that we're pretty much done that's all for today really hope that was helpful get out there have some fun go out camping i'll catch you next time

Channel: LakeHub

Views: 74,504

Keywords: pop up camper, popup, tent trailer, camping, camper, setup, trailer, pop up, winch

Id: S73uGlNvgto

Length: 17min 57sec (1077 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021