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joe_julie81's avatar
joe_julie81
Explorer
Dec 05, 2017

"Rocking " even though a pop-up?

Just read a story in TCM about taking a NorthStar pop-up on the White Rim trail in UT and there was some mention of some rocking. I'm hoping to take mine down some National Forest roads. Should I be concerned? Or is that just normal to using it? With fastguns do you have to worry about the tie down being too tight?
  • A pickup with a camper on is going to rock more than an empty pickup. It's just physics. If the truck handles fine during on road driving, the off road rocking is nothing to worry about. If the road is really on the rough side where you may experience some frame twisting it's a good idea to loosen the rear set of tiedowns so the twisting isn't all transferred to the camper.
  • Oh my. That’s scary...rocking while driving. My camper never rocked independently of the truck. I miss my 9.5 foot Beaver.
  • You can also go to youtube to see some neat videos. Just use the search term "truck camper white rim". Some of the best videos are by Truck Camper Adventure and travelingman2100. Or search the trip report sticky for "White Rim".
  • White Rim Trail is definitely not in the same league as a forest service road. Some of it is decently smooth, but some of it is very rough. Any camper not firmly bolted to the truck bed is going to do some rocking on that trail.

    I've gone off-road on 4wd trails which has caused my hard side to rock considering. Never had a problem with the tie downs. While my camper is a hard side, it is on the light side so I run the torklifts a bit looser than the 1/2 hole recommended by Torklift.

    Trick is to take it slow, stop to let the camper settle back down when needed.
  • I have a NorthStar 850SC with a Dodge 3500 at present but had a Dodge 2500 for 8 years. The first camper and the 2500 had no trouble that I noticed as far as rocking and the 3500 has shown no problems either. Between the two combinations I have driven over 175K over ALL types of roads including National Forest roads, up to Prudhoe Bay (2X) and many other "back" roads.
    Grant