breeves2245 wrote:
I'll look into the Brophy tie downs. Pete at Capri had the turnbuckle system ready to go but due to the step side bed, the brackets would not fit into the bed and there was no room to work with it. So we had to go to option B and bolt it down.
Lots of armchair suggestions. I happen to own and operate a fabrication and weld shop so in my humble opinion, I'd stick with the through the bed mounting for a couple reasons.
Most importantly, there are no external cleats on the sides of the unit to secure the camper to external tie down, you'd have to add those and correct placement and securing them could be problematic in as much as you have no idea how the framing under the skin is arranged or if it's suitable for external cleats.
If you absolutely want to go to external tie downs, any competent weld and fab shop can build a set of mounts (frame) with removable square tube extensions for conventional tie down's but you still have the cleat issue.
My opinion of the TL mounts are they are overpriced but then most people like the convenience of buying a pre made set. I've built external tie down's for a couple trucks already and all in, they are about 2/3rds the cost of the TL tie downs and that is installed as well.
I'd stick with the bed mount and buy yourself a spud bar. With a spud bar (alignment bar) aligning the camper to the drilled holes is a simple matter of inserting the bar through the bed to camper hole (from underneath) and moving the camper to align with your drilled holes. The camper is light enough that after getting it close, the spud bar will move it into alignment.
How I'd address the issue.
Myself, I like the 'no external tie down' look. Much cleaner. There are a couple builders that employ the no external tie down method, 4 wheel campers is another.
