Forum Discussion

rooney77's avatar
rooney77
Explorer
Oct 28, 2013

One last newb question

I see that some of y'all unload your camper when you've reached your destination. I assumed it wasn't safe to get into the cabover portion with the camper not tied down to the truck, is this false?

Sorry, I know it's a dumb question.
  • If your camper has 4 jacks there's no problem. Tie downs aren't really meant for keeping the camper from tipping forward although for some reason lots of people have that idea.
    The camper wouldn't tip forward if you put lots of people in the cabover. The rest of it is just too heavy and there's not enough leverage. We use ours all the time off the truck and there's never any problem. I'd have to do the math but I would guess you need more than 10 people on the front of a TC to even think about tipping it.
  • This year when we were in Alaska we stayed for 8 days in Anchorage. I unloaded the camper the day we got there till the day before we left. I did lower it down as low as it would go and also kept the front a little higher than the rear. We slept in it every night with no problem.

    But as said some camper are not meant to be used off the truck so you need to check if yours is capable of it. As mentioned about some campers do not have enough flooring to support people inside of the camper off the truck.

    Also welcome to the RV.net. Ask questions, almost all questions have been answered at one time or another but there are a lot of good people on here and they well try to help you any way they can so ask away.

    If you only have 3 jacks then I would never use it without some support under it. They are very capable of tipping over if you go to the front on the side of the single jack.
  • I may be a little paranoid, but I don't feel comfortable inside my TC when it's on the jacks. But, mine is a 1990 Sunlite and there are only 3 jacks forming a tripod - two on the driver side and one in the middle of the passenger side. I've seen many others on this forum say that it's OK with 4 jacks and is suppose to work that way, but I guess it depends on the TC age and the configuration.
  • Cabover portion should be fine. But some manufacturers don't want you one the FLOOR unless it's supported.