artfd
Explorer
Joined 20 years ago
User Profile
User Widgets
All Activity
Re: So what did you do to your Truck Camper today?
1) called my storage lot and cancelled my site rental. The old slide-in truck camper is dead, Jim. 2) Looked at the pile of debris (there's a flat trailer under it) and trying to come up with uses for the debris. The rest will go out to the curb in the wheelie bin, will probably be done with it by Labor Day. 3) I think I will cut away the old bumper sticker part and hang in on the basement wall next to my Wall Drug sticker, which dates back to 1983.272Views0likes0CommentsRe: Affordable Tie Downs!
"The mounts need to be BOLTED to the frame and you need metal tie downs." Metal ties from an underframe belly bar to the eyebolts on a truck camper -- chain, hooks, eye bolts, turnbuckles, all can be found in hardware stores most anywhere in the USA. http://www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/Brophy/TDHP.htmlThis kind of hardware. --- Finding a belly bar if an old one fails or if you need to fasten a truck camper to a pickup bed ASAP, that is another matter. There was no easy or straight forward way I knew of at the time to fasten a wooden beam to the bottom frame members of a pickup truck bed. The metal belly bar I got came with specially fashioned strong brackets that worked very much like U-bolts to keep the belly bar in position. --- After I tightened those turnbuckles between my camper and my wooden belly bar for the week that I used wood, I detected no evidence of movement or sliding. For the first 20 miles or so I stopped repeatedly & re-tightened the turnbuckles to take the slack that did develop, until there was no further slack. I grant I did not exceed 55 mph and only drove on smooth roads.463Views0likes0CommentsRe: Utility/Support Trailer Builds (Pictures added)
Do check out this site: http://www.tnttt.com/ short for "Teardrops and Tiny Travel Trailers" which is mostly about building small trailers designed to be lived in. There is a wealth of information on any and all aspects of building or modifying small trailers for the DIY'er. I built a truck shell in 2003. By far the hardest and most expensive part of that related project is the skin - something tough, water and travel resistant that doesn't cost a huge amount per square foot.275Views0likes0CommentsRe: Affordable Tie Downs!
"...and a 4x4 beam as a tiedown? No. Heck no. No no no. Holding down some dirt, and holding down a bucking, bouncing, bounding camper are two entirely different things. One of them is a good place for a piece of wood, the other is not. We build houses and barns out of wood because they are not going anywhere. It's bad enough most RVs are framed from wood. We don't need to be securing them to the vehicle with even more wood." The amount of bouncing and bounding that would break a 4x4 beam would more likely shatter the connecting points on the camper or the camper framework itself first. It worked fine for me, particularly as a temporary measure.463Views0likes0CommentsRe: Affordable Tie Downs!
I bought my steel belly bars in 1983 before pricing became extravagant. By 2010 the end of one had rusted off, where a telescoped section slid inside the main square-cross-section tube. Otherwise they outlived my camper. For a temporary belly bar, what about this: A 4"x4" treated lumber beam, long enough to stick out on either side (same way that metal bars do). Drill each end for a 3/8" or 1/2" diameter eye bolt, chain this to the bottom eye bolts of your camper. This has to be at least as strong as the bottom connection of the camper, & I think would stand up for a long time. But I'm not an engineer. I used this arrangement for a couple of weeks before my order for metal belly bars came through. This should work very well in emergency situations, as mentioned here: http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f29/Jaxom44/Moab%20EJS%202014/IMG_0913.jpg. You can buy treated lumber beams most anywhere, cut & drill them with simple hand tools, no welding required. I have not checked prices on these wood beams lately, wouldn't be surprised if they now cost more than metal ones! Wire the beam to the frame to secure it when the tension is off, or use galvanized pipe strapping. I later repurposed the beam when I paved my front drive for the first time -- used it as a threshold into the garage, whose floor was a couple of inches below the driveway grade, an error of the original builder I was trying to correct. The treated beam has been in the ground for 14 years & holding strong.461Views0likes0CommentsRe: Propane Tank - Metal Exterior Compartment
I am in the process of dismantling my wrecked truck camper, has a dual bottle propane box on the side, with vents cut & lines still in place. Within a few days I will be ripping it out & taking it to the recycler. It carried 2 vertical 20-lb bottles. I lost the original door within 2 days of buying this, have been using a simple 1x4 piece of redwood as a railing to keep the bottles in place. It also made shutting the gas off at the bottle real easy.283Views0likes0CommentsRe: Suggestions on strengthening jack attach point.
I had the same type of jacks,although they were not under a weak spot as shown in the original post. Got a call Monday morning from the storage lot after some very high winds. The jack supports as they twisted simply ripped the bolts out of the wooden frame, or in one case, ripped a huge chunk out of the frame itself. The jack on the left side, now under the camper, is badly bent. One of the three brackets was bent.130Views0likes0Comments
Groups
Travel Trailer Group
Prefer to camp in a travel trailer? You're not alone.Mar 05, 202544,027 Posts
