Wooden fail safe camper alignment tool
I wanted something that keeps the truck camper aligned in the bed and prevents the camper from sliding sideways in trucks bed The main advantage is that the tiedowns aren't pulling the camper too m...
Forum Discussion
I posted this response at the top of page three:
The devices that I offered on the first page were never meant to take the place of driver skill... it is the drivers job to practice loading the camper over and over until he or she can load it squarely and centered in the trucks bed.... most of us can do it without thinking about it.
There are plenty of clues as to weather you are getting it right.
1) the distance between the front jacks and the wheel wells.... my dually has about 1 1/2" space on each side
2) you can look at the apacing between the side rails on the trucks bed and the side walls of that portion of the camper that sits in the trucks bed.
3) other folks have their own visual clues. (Maybe they'll share)
IF, you have the skills necessary to back under your camper accurately and you make it a point to unload and reload your camper on level ground you too can drop the camper into the space between the blocks..
Again... I can't sress this enough.... most of us can do it with little thought or stress.
When I push the button to retract the jacks the camper is lowered between the centering blocks.... to stay aligned in the bed.... keeping equal tension on each of the properly adjusted tiedowns.
BTW... how many of you had truck campers back in the day when they all had three manually operated jacks? We cranked a little, walked to the next jack... cranked a little, then moved on to the third jack.... cranked itback to approximately level.... then repeated this over and over.
I usually moved the jacks about 4" with each pass around the camper.
I did it this way for 33 years.... on the same camper, the same truck, and the same jacks. Did it stress the camper.... probably.
Did anything fail.... no!
My truck was a daily driver... so the camper was loaded and unloaded with each trip.
I'll bet that my wife could load our camper correctly with a few trys of practice....
Note again.... my device and the other device pictured are not a tool to help the driver back up a truck... they are to keep the camper aligned after it is tied down and bouncing along the highways.
sleepy wrote:towpro wrote:
I have wondered about this method of aligning campers in beds, but if your not centered, as you lower the camper and camper body contacts blocks of wood and starts to force your camper to center of bed, don't it put a lot of stress on your jacks?
Practice, practice, practice.... there is no excuse for missaligning your camper more than a 1/2" or so....
Your camper is often off that much just from uneven ground....
My electric jacks don't move up or down at exactally the same speed... causing a walking effect.... occassionally you can hear the jack slip on the ground as the weight gets off one jack.... then the operator corrects...
walk the camper down... it's your job to practice until you can load it correctly no matter what method you ude to align your truck....
Thanks for your interest
sleepy
The devices that I offered on the first page were never meant to take the place of driver skill... it is the drivers job to practice loading the camper over and over until he or she can load it squarely and centered in the trucks bed.... most of us can do it without thinking about it.
There are plenty of clues as to weather you are getting it right.
1) the distance between the front jacks and the wheel wells.... my dually has about 1 1/2" space on each side
2) you can look at the apacing between the side rails on the trucks bed and the side walls of that portion of the camper that sits in the trucks bed.
3) other folks have their own visual clues. (Maybe they'll share)
IF, you have the skills necessary to back under your camper accurately and you make it a point to unload and reload your camper on level ground you too can drop the camper into the space between the blocks..
Again... I can't sress this enough.... most of us can do it with little thought or stress.
When I push the button to retract the jacks the camper is lowered between the centering blocks.... to stay aligned in the bed.... keeping equal tension on each of the properly adjusted tiedowns.
BTW... how many of you had truck campers back in the day when they all had three manually operated jacks? We cranked a little, walked to the next jack... cranked a little, then moved on to the third jack.... cranked itback to approximately level.... then repeated this over and over.
I usually moved the jacks about 4" with each pass around the camper.
I did it this way for 33 years.... on the same camper, the same truck, and the same jacks. Did it stress the camper.... probably.
Did anything fail.... no!
My truck was a daily driver... so the camper was loaded and unloaded with each trip.
I'll bet that my wife could load our camper correctly with a few trys of practice....
Note again.... my device and the other device pictured are not a tool to help the driver back up a truck... they are to keep the camper aligned after it is tied down and bouncing along the highways.
