New member - How do you secure your Alaskan?

[Hyakian]

Howdy,

New member here.
Recently purchased an 1988 8' cab over Alaskan, and will be mounting it to my 04' Dodge 2500.

I have seen that some people bolt through the bed of the truck to secure the camper.
Considering that the camper wont be on the truck full time, this seems like it will be a pain when it comes time to remove?

These seem to be popular but rather expensive:
http://www.torklift.com/p.php?w_page=tie_downs

What are others doing that seems to be working?

Thanks,
Hyakian

 

[MikeDahlager]

Well, I took what has turned out to be a difficult way of attaching the camper to my truck. I bolt it up front to the top of the rails the camper sits on. I simply drilled holes on the left and right sides and slip a 1/2" bolt through and bolt it on. Works fine, especially since I added side rails to the sides of the bottom section which center the camper between the wheel wells.
Mike

 

[banderswipe]

Hello Hyakian, welcome, I am in the process of attaching my 10' 1972 Alaskan non cab over to my Ford truck. I am using Billis split mount front tie downs,these bolt to the frame at the split between the cab and the box, with j bolts. They are similar to the Torklift tie downs but cheeper.The Billis fronts are 250$ Canadian. Then I am using heavy eye bolts attached to the Ford rear bumper for the rear tie downs. I have 4 eye bolts on the camper and will attach to lower tie downs with chains and turnbuckles. I hope this Helps.

Cheers, Kevin.

http://billisrve.com/index.php

 

[wcj]

I have a 8 foot cab over and am currently rebuilding a 8 foot non cab over. I tried several mounting methods, settled on happijac mounts in the truck and eye bolts in the camper (after reinforcing the corners).

 

[Hyakian]

Hello, thanks for your responses.

Picked up the new camper last night.
It was bolted to the bed of the truck and was a bit of a PITA to remove.

I looked at the BIllis Split mount.
They specify that this is not for off road use?

Here's a picture of the 8' cabover that I am selling.

 

[Fisher205]

Hyakian,
If you are going to go off road, your camper needs to flex. I have ripped out both front corners of my Alaskan because of flexing. I currently use in the front happijac cushioned tiedowns to eye bolts in the reinforced corners. I have still managed to straighten out the eye bolts.

In the back I bolt down the box but use old roller blade wheels as cushions

I haven't seen any damage to the rear, but I believe that isn't twisting as much as the front. I try to keep the mounts as close to the center of the box as I practically can so that they don't have as much leaverage on the camper.

 

[Kilroy]

I've gone back and forth on the best way to attach my 10' CO. Currently I use happijacks on the front corners to a homemade mount, and use happijacks in the rear that go from eye bolts in the bottom of the camper sticking out the back to the bumper mounts.

Next pic shows front mount, kind of. I'm also now using aluminum angle bolted to flatbed to limit side to side movement without stress to the happijak mounts..

 

[Fisher205]

Kilroy,
Nice Looking rig. Which bed is that?

I like the way the back attaches to the receiver mount. It would act more like a triangle type of mounting.

I had a problem with tying mine down using bumper mounts. It would spread the camper enough that the door wouldn't latch. I admit my camper is getting alittle "soft" in the back.

-Brad

 

[Kilroy]

Kilroy,
Nice Looking rig. Which bed is that?

I like the way the back attaches to the receiver mount. It would act more like a triangle type of mounting.

I had a problem with tying mine down using bumper mounts. It would spread the camper enough that the door wouldn't latch. I admit my camper is getting alittle "soft" in the back.

-Brad


It's a Ute aluminum flat bed. I'm very pleased with it.

I used to have it attached in rear to the corners coming down to the hitch. Have had some issues with corners pulling apart so changed the rear to the floor. Easy to do because it sticks out so much. Reinforced the front corners.

Dave

 

[Hyakian]

Update...

^^^
The CO I purchased was mounted through the trucks bed.
When I removed it from the sellers truck I was struck by how little was really holding the thing in place.
Four bolts with basic washers running through the floor of the camper, through sheet metal without reinforcement.
This person never went off road and never removed the camper so it worked out for him.

If I was going to leave the camper on the truck full time I might bolt it on as well however I would reinforce the holes on the camper and
add some material to the back side of the trucks bed to make sure there was no way the bolts would ever pull through.

I will be removing my camper when not in use so I chose to spend the money and get the Torklifts.
Considering my investment into both the truck and camper
the cost of the tie downs gives me peace of mind that the camper isn't going to come off or move around.
They installed easily enough and seem pretty solid.
When I'm not using them the extensions remove very quickly leaving just the receivers which you can hardly see.

I have some tie downs that came with the camper that I will be selling.
They mount to the back side of the rail of the trucks bed, and extend out over the side.
Simple turn buckles attach from the campers tie down points.
Send me a PM if there's any interest and I'll post some pictures.

Hope this helps.

 

[brownbear]

I'm hemming and hawing over how I am going to secure my camper. I don't want to drill the bed of my truck for a number of reasons. It is pristine and the idea of poking holes in it does not appeal to me, I don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to line up the holes every time I want to put the camper in, I don't want rust to set in where I drill and, lastly, I don't want the bolts to bend the bed from the camper flexing.

I have decided I would like to use my stake pockets. I can easily fashion some super strong bolts which will hold the camper in this area, but my dilemma is that I don't know where on the underside of the camper overhang I can affix the eye bolts I will be connecting to. It would help greatly if I could see some sort of rendering of the camper frame underneath the skin. Does anyone know where I can find such an illustration?

 

[banderswipe]

Hi Bear, The answer to your dilemma is any where on the shelf or more specificaly close enough to the stake pockets to work. The shelf is the frame, it is made of a single sheet of 3/4 ply wood. I would suggest big washers or what I did was use a piece of 12"x6"x1/8th aluminum checker plate as the washer. I also used the plate as the washer for my jack plate. You may think this a little extreme but when I picked up my camper the jack plate bolts on the rear had been ripped through the wood.There were holes the size of the washers in the plywood shelf. The owner said this is what happens when you drive off with your jacks down. He also mumbled something about partying to hard. I will try take some pics of my eye bolts.
Hope this helps,
Kevin.

 

[Tris]

I'm hemming and hawing over how I am going to secure my camper. I don't want to drill the bed of my truck for a number of reasons. It is pristine and the idea of poking holes in it does not appeal to me, I don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to line up the holes every time I want to put the camper in, I don't want rust to set in where I drill and, lastly, I don't want the bolts to bend the bed from the camper flexing.

I have decided I would like to use my stake pockets. I can easily fashion some super strong bolts which will hold the camper in this area, but my dilemma is that I don't know where on the underside of the camper overhang I can affix the eye bolts I will be connecting to. It would help greatly if I could see some sort of rendering of the camper frame underneath the skin. Does anyone know where I can find such an illustration?


Here's a plan B for you: My 2003 Ram 2500 had tie down cleats in all four corners of the bed. I took those out and bolted a 1/8 x 1" x about 18" steel strap to each. The rear ones angle forward, the front ones angle back. The straps area long enough that the upper ends are just accessible between the top of the truck bed and the camper shelf. I bolted the upper ends of the straps into the sides of the camper - not the shelf - so that the strain is in shear and doesn't want to flex the shelf down. I put thin rubber washers between the straps and the camper siding on the outside and fender washers on the inside. I also have 4x4 spacers in front of the camper on the truck bed. Nothing's moved in about 15,000 miles, but I drive mainly on highways rather than off road.

 

[brownbear]

I went ahead and bought some Brophy stake pocket tie downs- the kind that run over the rail of the truck and then attach to the camper with turnbuckles. I would have preferred the Torklift setup, but the expense seems a little excessive given the relatively inexpensive camper. My question is: will these be sufficient? Does anybody have any experience with them? I've heard of beds tweaking, but this camper isn't super heavy and I have an old '92 Dodge. I decided against bolting the camper through the floor of the bed because it is too difficult to align the holes when putting it back in after taking it out, and I don't want to be crawling around under the truck trying to tighten bolts. I'd really appreciate some feedback on this. I plan on loading the camper in the next few days. I'd appreciate strong sentiment either way from anyone who has used these Brophy stake pocket tie downs before. Thank you.

 

[LuckyDan]

I am familiar with Brophy's from awhile back, they have been around a long time. The style I'm familiar with sat anywhere you placed them on the bed rails and used a clamp and brace system to stay in place. They did not fit in the stake pockets. They worked OK with the old Caveman Camper we had at the time. Caveman's were built in the NW using NW materials, namely Douglas Fir timber and steel bracing which made them heavy, much like your Alaskan I would guess. The camper would sometimes pull the rear one's out of position on really rough roads or off road. The cure was to use three on each side. One up front and two on the rear, one each side of the mounting eye with a separate turnbuckle to each. The up side was they could be placed anywhere along the bed the clamp plate could get under the bed rail lip. The other up is they were quickly removable. The down side, (sort of) is they were heavily built and stuck out to the edge or even a little outside of the camper. If you caught one on a tree or something you would probably bend up the bed and tear out the mounting eye before you would bend the Brophy.

Best of luck mounting up your camper. I've never owned one but have stayed in them. They really are solid, warm campers.

 

[Rusty]

My brother in law has some of those brophys and has used them with his Alaskan for the last 10 years....worked just fine

mine started out as a bolt in the bed and that worked fine as long as you weren't taking it out....ugh

Mine is now tied in with happijacks and derringer quick releases....I use the reico titan jack plates but the more I see the tie down coming from the bottom half at the rear with eye bolts I'm thinking of changing...

Tieing it down using the jack plates puts a different torque and directional tension that the seat in the camper wasn't designed to take. The last correction I made to the jacks was to install a stainless steel plate inside the camper to sandwich the plywood....gives the tiedown tension something to bite on....but I take the camper off regularly and the system makes it easy.

 

[brownbear]

Thanks a lot for the responses, guys. I know some people say to not use the Brophys, but I think they are talking about much larger cabovers. These are the ones which fit right into the stake pockets, and are secured with three bolts through each one- one through the top rail, and two through the side of the stake pocket. It seems to me that, most of the time, there would not be much pressure on them at all. It would just be more for emergency purposes such as crashes, sidehills, etc. I plan on using some heavy duty turnbuckles rated at least 1200 lbs per. I'm going to use eyebolt anchors on the underside of the camper overhang in all four locations, with plate on both sides so the anchors cannot pull through. I don't plan on tightening the turnbuckles too much, and am looking for some galvanized "eye and eye" style which are exceedingly difficult to find. I'll attach them with "quick links".

 

[banderswipe]

Hi bear sounds like you are worked out ready to go. Don't forget to put an extra nut on your turnbuckle's to lock them or they will come loose. I make it a habit to check the turnbuckles before during and after a trip.

Cheers,
Kevin.