Best Place to Buy Torklift Tiedowns?

BradW wrote:
... Grade 8 fasteners are SO SEXY! I like the way they look, feel and especially the way they sound when they clank together. :) :) :)

Brad, with thoughts like that I think you are ready for retirement. Resist the urge to wearing a pointed aluminum foil hat.

Wayne

Torklift must have changed to the same Curt supplier. Grade 8 fasteners are SO SEXY! I like the way they look, feel and especially the way they sound when they clank together. :) :) :)

BradW wrote:
The fish wire that came with the forklift tiedowns looked exactly like the curt fishwire amazon.

Hmmm...mine looked very different. My tie down wire was spread open on the end. The Curt was smaller diameter and perfectly threaded onto the 1/2" bolt.
Unless I spread the wire open getting them off the bolt. Two years ago and my memory could have failed me.
I didn't need the Curt supplied fishwire to install my front receiver so I saved it.

The fish wire that came with the torklift tiedowns looked exactly like the curt fishwire on amazon. It fit the 1/2" bolts perfectly.

When I installed the front tiedowns on my 2016 Ram I should have just bought a 2 1/2" long bolt instead of using the supplied 2" bolt. After fishing the bolt through the frame it was quite the challenge to hold the tiedown, hold the fish wire, and then start the nut with my 3rd hand. I eventually used a small pair of needle nose vice grips to hold the bolt to prevent it from falling back inside the frame.
Curt Mfg. has a much better fish wire they supplied with my front receiver hitch. It's a perfect fit for a 1/2" bolt, instead of the Tiedown fish wire. Amazon sells the Curt fish wire for a couple bucks.
I just traded my Ram SRW for 2018 Ram dually. I really was dreading re-installing those front tiedowns. I called Torklift to be sure what model I needed for the rear, assuming they would change going from a SRW to a dually. But no, the rears are the same but the front is different. Strange. I haven't installed them yet so hoping it's the right stuff.

Install Photos

Got the two rear ones installed this morning. Way too easy. They fit the Ford OEM hitch perfectly.

Overall they all went on great. Having bought many after market jeep parts; most of which I had to grind on, re-drill, weld, plasma cut, repaint, beat on, re-bend, etc to make fit/work, these Torklift tiedowns were a pleasant surprise to just hold up to the chassis and have the bolts actually line up with all the holes. Another surprise was actually having good instructions written by someone with English as their first language and also having all the correct fasteners in the box. Nice clean welds on these tiedowns; definitely ain't no Chinese made junk.

A few suggestions:
- the box got punctured a little during the 2,000 mile journey. no major damage, but I just hate it when the UPS man gets to knock paint off of something I ordered before I do
- there are two different length bolts. the instructions clearly state this. but if you get in a hurry like I did and put a short bolt in a long hole, you will find that getting the bolt and all the other pieces a lot harder to get out of the Ford fully boxed chassis than it was to pull them in there
- you can see in the photo that the bottom bolt hangs down pretty far. I guess they use a long bolt to make installation easier. I plan on cutting that bolt off some. it just look like it is setting waiting for me to forget about it get snagged on it someday when I'm crawling under the truck for something
- when you use the bolt pull wires, bend over the last 1/4" just incase you poke yourself in the eye with on of the three sharp ends bouncing around during installation
- check for sharp weld edges and sharp weld splatter before installing. you can easily knock them down with a small hammer and it may prevent you from getting cut.
- I found one of the more difficult things was getting the 2"x2" spacers inplace on the front tiedowns while you are having to deal with all the other pieces and pull wires. if those two spacer could have elongated holes and tack welded into place in the tiedown, it would make life easier
- I found the Torklift installation videos very helpful since I had never installed these before. But the videos could be a lot more helpful if they painted the tiedowns a different color (yellow?) than black just for the install video and provided better lighting under the vehicle. everything is black under there and its hard to see whats going on in the video. also, adding a close up video of how you have to push the star washers and 1x2 backing plates up into the frame separating from the bolt would be very helpful for the neophyte like myself

Great product, glad I bought them.
BradW

Got the two front ones installed after work today. Took about an hour to install the first one and half that to install the second one. Obviously a well made and well thought out product. All the parts were in the box and all the holes lined up. :) :) :)

I have a 2 year old set of fast guns with all of the locks that I am looking to sell if you would like to private message me we could work out a deal.

Fast guns.:W

Looks like my tiedowns will be delivered today. :) :) :)

Hope I can install the front ones before the rain moves in tomorrow. I will try to post up some photos. The rear ones look like a quick install (if all goes well). Then I get to figure out which type of turnbuckle / fast gun / chain / etc I need.

Brad