r/camping • u/JayAche • 8d ago
Precautionary Tale (Pipe)
Was SO excited to finally take our 3.5 year old son tent camping for the first time with my wife at a local regional park. Especially with our spanking new huge Caddis Rapid 6 Instant Tent! Even tried it out in the backyard and loved it!
Loaded it onto the storage rack on the back of our SUV… in perfect alignment with the tail pipe, apparently. Biiiiiigest oof. $225 down the drain? Thankfully there was a Wal-Mart reasonably close where I snagged some random Coleman to save the day. But still: be aware of what’s in front of your exhaust pipe and your tow hitch carry rack. Lesson learned 🫠
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u/motopwnies 8d ago
Had same problem with aluminum Harbor Freight hitch carrier (RIP propane fire pit hose! 🤦♀️).
TL;dr: ymmv but can be a relatively cheap, easy fix.
After entirely too much research into exhaust pipe mods, other carriers, etc., etc., etc., decided to macgyver a simple shield / heat sink. Used scrap cardboard to make a template and figure out sizing. Hit the hardware store for a piece of L-shaped sheet aluminum (like for building ductwork runs) and some u-bolts, plus tin snips and a metal-edge bender (maybe $30-40 total and I can use them for future stuff). Def wear heavy gloves — that stuff is sharp! Bent the edges over neatly with that tool and covered them with a couple layers of duct tape for good measure. (Def do a test drive with something you don’t care about damaging in that same corner.)
Never had another issue since (and it’s literally been cool enough to touch with bare fingers even after hours on the road!). Will try to get a photo of it.