Newbie question: how to tie down camper on the truck?

Haas,
1. The main reason for the tie downs is to hold the TC in the bed. The springs in the bezels just follow the racking in the bed AND keep the TC from pulling itself apart.
2. If you never get off-road, not to worry. Those apricots will still be there.
IF you decide to get a little more adventurous, loosen the rear tie downs a lot and the front tie downs a little. Get all that hardware i mentioned above. If it makes you feel better, get the front tie downs with the little springs in them. They WILL save your camper from The RACK. I'm not so fond of tie downs that are difficult to adjust on the fly.
Remember the prime directive in taking a TC off-road: RESISTANCE IS FEW-TILE to quote the Cone heads.
regards, as always, jefe

So, let me ask a little followup question. Is the main reason for springs in the turnbuckles to handle the flex in the truck bed when it gets a little rough? I got a long set of four turnbuckles with no springs when I bought my TC from the previous owner. He said he never had any issues with the solid attachment but I need to ask you experts about your thoughts.

All good advice. If your are going to keep the big one, think of the tie downs as part of a flexible (no pun intended) package. Wha.....?
Let's look at the internal physics here. A pick up truck bed will twist (rack) with the four bolts holding it to the frame of the truck. This only becomes a problem if you have a TC in the bed and go off-road, as most TC's are built to resist flexing. Early on in my ongoing TC education i tore one of those four 3/8's inch bolts right thru the bracket. Hm? too much stress here. What to do? I used a thick fender washer and re installed the bolt. It has been fine.
What i learned was to allow the bed to flex but loosen the rear tie downs to limp in order to allow the box to lift at the rear, one side or the other, as the rearmost part of the frame has the most rack. In my assessment of the relative weight of my TC (which has a very long front overhang) front vs. rear I found most of the weight is on the front two jacks with maybe 20% on the rear. No, I have not scientifically weighed these, but just note how much resistance is on each MANUAL jack as i try to lift. So I keep the front tie down snug (not tight) and loosen the rears mightily to allow for lift. Push come to shove, it's kind of a Zen thing. I have been on some pretty tortuous roads lately using this system and so far, so good. The TC is not pulling itself apart. What I'm trying to do is take tension out of the picture. So how do you keep the box in the bed if it's not snugly tied down?
A combination of hardware including:

1. Sturdy tie downs with easily adjustable tension. My Happie Crappie tie downs are good enough as the fronts have a stiff spring in the bezel, and the rears tie to the bumper which has some flex, enough to need no internal spring; or so the engineers at Lance believe. But that set up is for flat, paved roads with an occasional pull off in the gravel to by some apricots.
2. Centering brackets. They actually transfer the stress from the tie downs to the base shear wall of the TC. If using the brackets you can actually loosen the tie downs. I use the Lance brackets, but there are some great home-made ones by fellows on here that I would much rather have.
3. A thin, fluted rubber bed mat. This helps further keep the TC from sliding, rocking or swaying from side to side. If the TC is too close to the roof of the cab, then build up a framework underneath but don't just use a thicker mat as the sway will return.
4. On the inside rear of a p.u. there are footman's loops to tie down cargo. I'm going to start using these with 1K pound ratchet straps to keep the TC from wanting to slide out the back when going up a very steep hill. By doing this I may be able to loosen the side tie downs a bit looser too. My bro John now used much heavier ratchet straps to tie down his OUTFITTER! after he found his frame was being racked by too much tension on his factory tie downs and he has a '99 long bed Ford pickup that does a lot of flexing.
One of the successes of my set up is that i have a Dodge hydro formed short bed frame, a stiffy, which gets not a lot of rack front to back as it's so short. I also have an 8 foot, 6 inch floor on my TC which hangs over the rear about 20 inches. That's 20 inches that are not being racked by the frame twisting.
There really is NO way to make a pickup bed into a three-point bed, like so many of the high bucks euro campers use. Going to a flatbed with a three-point system is very do able and will mitigate the set up trying to pull itself apart as the platform remains flatform.
And, of course, take the jacks off when you get the camper loaded on the truck.
My last advice is to just get it on there with some secure tie downs and have a blast.
jefe

If you truly want to off road the truck and camper, you really should consider getting rid of the extra long camper and get a shorter one that ends at the truck bumper, or not too far beyond, and doesn't hang down below the truck bumper either. A big camper like that is bound to have its tail end crunched up or rear jacks torn off, when crossing dips in the trail.

67avion wrote:
...I think you may need a little more time to learn the ropes. If you are not familiar with all the issues of truck camper tie downs, COG, and suspension then I'm sure you will be - sooner rather than later. And from the sound of your plans you'll learn about these issues somewhere in El Salvador.

Take a little time and find some rough areas in Texas that are similar to your anticipated travel. Have a good shake down. These TCs ain't Airstreams.

This is very good advice. I imagine you will be tackling some dirt roads / dry river crossings. I drive offroad / on rough dirt roads with the camper. The truck tends to flex when offroad so you need a strong tie-down system and one that allows for that flex to ensure nothing breaks. So I recommend a frame-mounted system with spring-loaded tie-downs. Also be careful of jacks that stick down and could easily be caught on the scenery when negotiating rough dirt roads / crossing rivers beds.

Have a great time on your trip and don't forget to post a trip report with pictures so we can see where you've been :)

Steve.

jornvango wrote:
So ... long story short: here's my first TC question
The TC came with tie downs. How/where do we attach this to our truck? If I understand it correctly, we need to attach the front of the TC to the back of the truck (and vice versa)?

Jornvango, you have my best wishes on your South American adventure. But, I think you may need a little more time to learn the ropes. If you are not familiar with all the issues of truck camper tie downs, COG, and suspension then I'm sure you will be - sooner rather than later. And from the sound of your plans you'll learn about these issues somewhere in El Salvador.

Take a little time and find some rough areas in Texas that are similar to your anticipated travel. Have a good shake down. These TCs ain't Airstreams.

I grew up with a TC as a kid with my dad. The stake bed tie downs caused stress cracks in the bed welds on the truck we had just behind the cab. It was a cab over and hung off the back about 2-3 ' . My dad built a frame mount system with stainless jay hooks and springs much like the systems you all are talking about. This was on a 1970 F250 . I guess he should have pattened it he was way ahead of his time. NRALIFR 'S rig reminds me of my dads we had a bracket on front to haul a 5k generator and extended rear bumper to tow the boat . Had a trailer ball on front to hook boat to and drive down the boat ramp to launch sure was easy to steer that way. Anyway go with frame mounted system .

You want proper tie downs for a long off road trip. Ratchet straps are not a good idea, they can stretch and tear.
Stake pocket tie downs are out unless you have a tiny camper on an old truck with real metal.
Torklifts are great but they can compromise ground clearance.
I would use Happijacks for your application. There less chance of hitting the brackets on something on a rough road.
You don't tie the front of the camper to the back or the back to the front. The front of the camper gets hooked to the front tie downs. The back to the rear tie downs.

No, you really need to get your anchor points out from under the truck. Nylon straps bearing against the body of the truck will quickly cut through them, or at the least mess up the sheetmetal.

That's a huge truck camper, you only want frame mounted tie-downs. No stake-pocket tiedown is going to work. There are really only two options for purchasing a tiedown system for this size camper: Torklift or Happijac.

As far as using ratchet straps instead of chain/turnbuckles, fastguns, etc, just make sure those straps are rated for the load you are using them for. While there are straps made that would work, I would just use the proper hardware that's made for the job. There's a reason most TC owners use the type of equipment we do. It's because it generally works best.

:):)

Thanks everyone!

I currently have ratchet tie downs on it. My wife doesn't feel comfortable with them as they are too short for me to go under the truck and clamp them into the truck frame as I want them to.

Would ratchets with longer straps be an alternative to Torklift?