Locked In...

[Kansafornia]

Have you. been there...?

Sunday whilst I was inside the lowered camper top working on the hydraulics one of my team mates walked past the camper and shut the upper door. I didn't think anything of it until... I needed to get out. Ya, that was a bit of a situation. Thankfully I had an extra-long wooden spoon in my cooking drawer and was able to actuate the upper door's handle to get out.

For those of you with the more modern Alaskans, the "vintage" campers didn't have a means to actuate the upper camper door handle when it was lowered and closed; a ~16" space that is about 1" wide. Boy howdy...

Needless to say, one can easily get stuck in the lowered camper top without a means to reach down between the doors to actuate the upper door and swing it open. I'd like to give a call out to "Tripper" on YouTube for his 'Stealth Camping in an Alaskan' video for my inspiration to get free. It's not the best video in the world, however without it... I would have had to wait on my coworker to get back from lunch to open the door.

My solution was a simple one that I *BELIEVE* Alaskan engineered into later models. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to help. It's a pretty easy 'fix', actually, but does necessitate the window removal, subsequent reset, a 1/4" aluminum bar, an eyelet to accept that bar, and drilling through the door plate to attach the bar to the handle.

Ok... maybe it wasn't as easy as I'm suggesting it is, but... I have a shop so it wasn't terribly difficult. Again, lmk if y9u also suffer this issue and I can provide more info on the 'fix'.

Note: This 'solution' allows one to stealth camp; sans raising the top.

 

[Bos_Trok]

Interesting, my 65' came with that rod to open the door. Must be a "modern" one. The top of the rod was snapped off and scratching up the window trim, so I shoved a wine cork over the end.

 

[Kansafornia]

Interesting, my 65' came with that rod to open the door. Must be a "modern" one. The top of the rod was snapped off and scratching up the window trim, so I shoved a wine cork over the end.

Yessir, I'm sure some unfortunate camper got stuck and - after release - likely gave the mfr an earful. Mine didn't have that setup - nor the North/South hole through the door frame. Sounds like they got the design right in the next year's model.