Loosening tie downs for off road TC'ing

anutami wrote:

wintersun wrote:
Dumb idea to undo the turnbuckles as it increases the loading on the outer wheel which is not good and it increases movement/rocking of the camper which is not good and it provides zero benefits.

Want to do a lot of trail running get a popup camper or pull a high clearance popup trailer. This is what everyone else does who is not clueless. Or remove the camper, run the trails, then come back and re-load the camper onto the truck.

You seem to be clueless as to why many people get a truck camper and what many veteran offroaders are doing and what we can learn from them. Nobody is talking about undoing any tie downs just loosing them.

you may want take a few pointers from this guy who has been offroading his entire life.

Jefe4x4 Part 1

Jefe4x4 Part 2

"Jefe: Without a 3-point or 4-point truck camper attachment system on a flatbed, I have relied on "working" the four tie downs to be appropriate to the road surface. The frames on all pickup trucks are built to flex/tweak/rack. The truck bed will flex right along with it. This all depends on road surface and how twisted up you allow the axles. If you do not considerably loosen the rearmost tie-downs crawling over an undulating road surface, the twisting frame will try to pull your truck camper apart, little by little, by making the camper conform to the truck bed and frame twisting. Why the rearmost? In jacking the truck camper up above the truck bed for removal, I noticed most of the weight of the truck camper is on the forward jacks. Hmm? Little weight on the rear, at least on mine. I allow the rear of the truck camper frame to "float" and actually lift off the bed on one side or the other, trying not to conform to the twisting frame/bed, just follow the attitude of the front tie-downs. For off-roading, there is no room for camper jacks. They are just heavy outriggers ready to make contact with a slowly passing boulder. I remove them as soon as the camper is on the truck and leave them at home. Another issue I have pursued is to store nothing on the roof; all weighty items should be stored as low as possible. Potato chips, tea bags, and beer cozies; up high."

My only question is where is Jefe4x4? Haven't seen a post from him in awhile and I am sure he would have chimed in on this, but is probably on some 4x4 trail with his loosened tie downs...What a moron, he should get a pop up camper or trailer.