Cracked the bed of my truck
So, this summer my camper spent a lot of time on the truck. Made several long trips. One to Inavale Horse Trials in Oregon and another to Kalispell, MT for The Event at Rebecca Farms. In September I...
Forum Discussion
rickjo wrote:trail-explorer wrote:
What does the Ford Dealer have to say about the cracking sheet metal?
Don't carry 5000 lbs concentrated on two thin rails. :S
Seriously. The truck is 9 years old and there is no warranty that ignores user abuse. If anything, it's a bad Lance design coupled with my 50,000 miles of bouncing the load anywhere and everywhere. I think I have learned not to concentrate the camper weight by using plywood under it.
Rick
That is a fact. Even with plywood, I would made two wood runners to lay in the valleys on each interior side of the ridge that rides on the edge of the camper, where the seam is. Without doing that, the camper will still transfer the weight to those corners as the camper weight shifts from side to side. The transferring of the weight on the edge, down to the bed cross members is essential to solving the problem. The plywood certainly helps spread the load out, but on the two sides where the seam is, the load needs to be transferred down to the bottom valley where the cross members attach. That is where the strength is.
