Avion truck campers - Hundreds of photos
Without going into too much painful detail, we had a mishap several week-ends ago. While working with sand bag crews on the Mississippi River, the truck and camper fell into the flood waters as a road...
Forum Discussion
Rastaman wrote:
So.....I have a question...My wings are complete, before I go any further. What are you guys using for tie-down points. Are the jack stand brackets being used or do I need to install separate tie-down hooks?
Could I used an 'eye bolt' for one of the jack mount bolts. My stands are going to be bolted through 2 sheets of 3/4 ply with a piece of 1/8th aluminium plate between jack and the body on the outside.
Inside the bolts go through alum plate also.
We tackled these issues a while back, so I think I'm recalling the key ideas.
My tie down points were in very bad condition with the wood having decayed all around.
What is important to think about is that the tie downs have dynamic forces while the jack stands experience (for the most part) stable loads. If you use the Torklift Fastguns, for instance, they are spring loaded tie downs that ease the sudden strains caused by bumps or other shifts in the road.
So, its wise to keep the structure for the tie down point quite strong - but not to the extent that the whole bottom of the camper can be torn out by an extreme force. At least that was my thinking.
The jack stand supports were built with a very wide piece of metal, after the wings were repaired, to spread the pressure over a larger surface.
On the inside you can see the tie down plate on the left and the jack stand plate on the right.
I think in retrospect I should have given more space to the tie down points. However, I have had no problems with the construction as illustrated by my crash at Muley Point that tore up a Fastgun, but left the camper intact.
By the way, D1, the meet-up at Muley Point is in May......
