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Rear turnbuckle mount failure on Hallmark Guanella

Hallmark turnbuckles camper mounting off-road 4WD Tie downs damage repair

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#41 Stitch

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Posted 04 February 2017 - 12:25 AM

I seem to be getting more confused rather than less. Although my mechanic's advice to let the rear leaf springs/ overloads do their job as designed (without putting things in to obstruct their movement) makes sense to me, coulter6 and nobueno seem to feel the stableloads (lower and upper, respectively) tamed the jarring ride. Bad Habit seems to think the uppers actually made the ride more jarring. I'm wondering what I should do - uppers, lowers, or none? The folks at Torklift essentially consider the issue a no-brainer and recommend the lowers over the uppers for our purposes (they do like their company's products! and for what it's worth the company seems to be well run). I'll talk to the metal fabricator/ off-road modification guy tomorrow when I drop the truck off. It'll be a week or two before he's done installing skid plates and repairing turnbuckle mounting points, so there's time yet to ponder.
Any other positive or negative experiences people have had with StableLoads (or other ride-smoothing modifications for rough terrain) would be appreciated.
Thanks!


DoGMAtix,
Have you considered Timbrens? They are dirt simple. When my Guanella is off the truck, there is no contact and the truck rides as stock. When I load the truck with either the camper or a heavy bulk load, they start to come into play. I got these instead of airbags since I really don't need to level the truck with a load. I also avoid the complexity of airbags. They seem to do just fine for me.
If you need to level your truck, then you're not in the same situation and airbags might be a better choice.
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#42 DoGMAtix

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Posted 05 February 2017 - 07:48 AM

Have not heard about timbrens. I suppose if we don't like the ride with air bags and adjustable shocks could consider trying those.

 

The big news is that the fabricator is back at work and the plates are now ordered. We're going with 3/16 inch steel plates 7" wide and about 2' long on the inside of the camper and 5" wide on the outside for a similar length. One of his employees showed me some cardboard cutouts he'd made as templates, which were too short to adequately span the area of splintered plywood on the driver's side. Apparently the way the fridge is fastened they wouldn't have been able to get the interior plate far enough back to get beyond the damaged plywood without taking the fridge out. So I asked if they could take the fridge out and make a plate that would actually fasten to intact plywood, then put the fridge back in. Seeing's that fridges do get put in and taken out of campers on a fairly regular basis... Looks like an hour and a half of extra labor will suffice. I'm a bit concerned that it never occurred to the guy to suggest taking the fridge out to do the repair right, but in any case I think we're on our way now.

I'll update with photos when we've made significant headway.


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#43 Stitch

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Posted 05 February 2017 - 02:45 PM

Sorry, I thought you were considering air bags. If you have already mounted air bags, Timbrens are not your answer.
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#44 Bad Habit

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Posted 05 February 2017 - 04:08 PM


 

Seeing's that fridges do get put in and taken out of campers on a fairly regular basis... Looks like an hour and a half of extra labor will suffice. I'm a bit concerned that it never occurred to the guy to suggest taking the fridge out to do the repair right, but in any case I think we're on our way now.

 

 

 

If it really was common sense, it would be more common.


Edited by Bad Habit, 05 February 2017 - 04:10 PM.

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#45 DoGMAtix

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Posted 15 February 2017 - 05:46 AM

Ok, finally getting close.

Here are some photos of the plates made to repair the blown-out rear turnbuckle mounting points.

The first is the front part of the interior (upper) plate on the driver's side. It's 7" wide and about 2 feet long (to ensure the hole is totally covered and the plate is mounted to structurally sound plywood fore and aft). The plate continues back through a notch in the wall (left side of photo) so that the back part of the plate extends well inside the external mechanical compartment for the fridge (see second photo). The third photo shows the underside of the plate, which is 5" wide and a similar length to the internal plate.

Plates are made of 3/16" steel.

On the passenger's side we've done a similar fix, with the interior (upper) plate continuing through a notch in the wall between the dinette and the closet in order to adequately span the splintered/compromised plywood.

Photo of interior passenger's side plate (will be under dinette cushions) is included last. You can see where that one goes through the bottom of the dividing wall into the cabinet, to give it extra length to reach solid wood in back. The hex-headed bolts will be replaced by carriage bolts so that the bolts can't be felt and the cushions don't get snagged.

Mounting points will be going onto the external plates over the next few days. We've decided not to go with springs since it seems like the system is strong enough to hold some good thumps and the spring seemed to have too much give.

Skid plate has been mounted over the gas tank, and the transfer case should be covered as well by Friday. By the way, it turns out that the shocks (adjustable Ranchos) seem to be in good shape. So we should be road worthy by the weekend. No camping trips coming up soon but I'll take it out onto a dirt road somewhere to test it.

More photos to follow.

Attached Thumbnails

  • driver's side plate in cabinet.jpg
  • Driver's side plate in fridge cabinet.jpg
  • Underside of driver's side turnbuckle mounting plate.jpg
  • passenger plate interior under dinette cushion.jpg

Edited by DoGMAtix, 15 February 2017 - 02:22 PM.

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2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L CTD short bed quad cab, 2008 Hallmark Guanella


#46 OpenSpace

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Posted 15 February 2017 - 09:55 PM

wow beefy. should do the trick i'd think. thought you were going with an L-shaped bracket?


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#47 DoGMAtix

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Posted 16 February 2017 - 02:06 AM

So did I. But the metal fabricator thought this would be plenty strong enough, and I have to agree. I don't think the plate will deform, it's just a question of whether the plywood has been weakened far enough away from the hole to give way over a much larger area. If the side wall of the camper were structurally sound to fasten the plate to it would add a lot of extra support, but sadly it's not.

Open Space, how did your rig hold up? What did you end up doing with the turnbuckle mounting brackets?


Edited by DoGMAtix, 16 February 2017 - 02:08 AM.

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#48 OpenSpace

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Posted 16 February 2017 - 02:32 AM

Truck did good in DV but I did drive conservatively. Fastguns are spring loaded so I suppose that helps. Did a number of recent upgrades (see post "A Few Upgrades") including 35s with 18" wheels. The motivation for this was to gain tire sidewall so I could air down. Just back from the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and truck killed it out there. Aired down to 35 front 40 back and that seemed like the sweet spot. 

 

Rear turnbuckle mounts I kept stock. I monitor them constantly - so far so good. 


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#49 DoGMAtix

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Posted 24 February 2017 - 08:23 AM

The truck is finally done! Here are some pics of the final repairs/reinforcements:

1) Driver's side exterior plate with turnbuckle mounting point attached

2) Close up of mounting point, welded to the plate

3) Interior plate for passenger's side, under the dinette cushions. We switched to carriage bolts to keep the profile low - we don't notice the hardware under the cushions and it doesn't snag.

4) Same plate, where it continues back through a notch at the bottom of the closet "wall" into the rear cabinet.

5) Cotter pin and washer to keep the front turnbuckle from coming unhooked on steep downhill roads when the camper shifts forward (Flint Trail in the Maze District of Canyonlands, eg)

Attached Thumbnails

  • Driver's side plate.jpg
  • Driver's side plate mounting point.jpg
  • Interior pssgr side plate.jpg
  • Interior pssgr side plate in closet.jpg
  • Front turnbuckle retaining system.jpg

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2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L CTD short bed quad cab, 2008 Hallmark Guanella


#50 DoGMAtix

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Posted 24 February 2017 - 08:29 AM

Oh, and did I mention the skid plates we had installed to protect the gas tank and transfer case while we were at it?

Attached Thumbnails

  • skid plates driver's side.jpg
  • Skid plate pssgr side.jpg

Edited by DoGMAtix, 24 February 2017 - 08:30 AM.

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2006 Dodge Ram 2500 5.9L CTD short bed quad cab, 2008 Hallmark Guanella






Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: Hallmark, turnbuckles, camper mounting, off-road, 4WD, Tie downs, damage, repair

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