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...
Forum Discussion
sleepy wrote:Reddog1 wrote:
Is there anyone that think there would have been a better outcome if the TC would have stayed attached to the Truck? Think about it, the truck would have been on its side, kids and all.
I do offer a disclaimer, I have a stable lift. By design, the lower hoop sandwiches the truck bed and frame between the lower hoop and TC. Tie-downs other than the Stable-Lift are not used, although they could be. I do not have a Wolf Creek TC. I have owned numerous TCs, since about 1972. My point is, I have nothing to defend, gain or loose in this discussion.
Wayne
I agree with you completely about the camper seperation.
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And,
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'llthink 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.
I understand what you're saying and agree with your thoughts on the attachment bracket failure possibly being caused by a prior incident, but in this case the rear Happijac tie down to the bumper also failed. The rear bracket on that side of the camper was completely intact, while his bumper was twisted from the incident. So in this case a frame-mounted tie down on the rear probably would have saved this camper from going airborne.
