Wolf Creek 850 roll over story
Well, Since I opened this can of worms here is the entire story. First let me say I have been a long time truck camper owner and I am no rookie. I have gone trough several truck campers. I recent...
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sleepy wrote:
... I'd like to say that I have repaired or helped repair severl Truck Camper tie down systems over the years.
In each case the problem was the attachment bracket attached to the camper wings.
The damage incured was what I call Speed Bump Damage.
If you hit a speed bump hard enough for your camper to start bouncing or porporsing it can tear the tiedown bracket off the wings of the camper.
IT makes no difference what kind of tiedowns that you use.
If it isn't immediately apparent and you have a stress related incident later like wind, rough roads, hard braking, etc you'll think that the latest incident caused all of the problem.
If I remember correctly... the OP's campers attachment bracket probably failed first... possibly starting the chain of events that we see in the pictures upside down in the road.
It had nothing to do with the tie downs them selves... no matter what type tie downs the failure started in the campers attachment bracket tear out.
It is my understanding the reason most the tie-downs now have springs or rubber cushions built in. Then greatly reduce the stress on the TC mounting brackets. If overtightened, you loose the ability of tie-downs to absorb the shock.
Back in the seventies (and a bit later), we only had turn buckles for tie-downs. It was common practice to loosen the rear ones, when driving on washboard type roads. This allowed some movement of the TC with reduced stress on the tie-down mounting.
