Temporary Camper Shuttling

T

tk254254

Advanced Member
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Nov 7, 2011
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57
Location
Oregon City, OR
Hello,

We are going to move my used 86 keystone camper to a different garage to begin resizing the floor pac. The rig it is temporarily going on is not setup with camper tiedowns. Additionally, this camper was permanently mounted so there are no tiedown points to use. The current plan is to strap it down internally using the front bedstakes (and single access holes), and then throw a strap over the entire camper at the rear of the bed.

The other bad news is that this keystone will be going on a short bed with the tailgate down.

Has anyone done any purely temporary redneck rigging such as this to transfer a FWC around? Like I say, this is purely temporary and there are no plans for speed trials or G force measurements in the twisties.

Thanks.
 
I've heard of people using motorcycle tiedowns from eyebolt to eyebolt but that doesn't sound like it would work here. Do you at least have corner jack brackets you could maybe attach carabiners to and maybe strap it to the chassis? Also, that does seem like an awful lot of camper to be hanging off of a shortbed.
 
How far are ya going? And will there be highway speeds?


Yep, highway speeds. There are currently NO tiedown points on the camper.
 
The aerodynamic forces increase with the square of velocity.
At highway speeds I would want it tied in. Everything will be pushed back and the front will want to lift.

You mention that you are replacing the floor pack, How much are you trying to reuse? You could just drill through and add your own tiedown points in places where you are replacing the material anyway.

I would try to avoid squashing structures that I wasn't replacing so I would probably try to avoid running a strap over the top. It could be fine. Would need someone with experience or the factory to weigh in on that one.

Does it overhang the sides of the truck enough to add an eyebolt? Would you be preserving that space anyway?

When I bought mine I wasn't prepared at all truckwise, so I used ratchet straps from the eyebolts that the camper had around the side of the truck to the frame underneath. I too had highway speeds.
 
When I purchased my Hawk I did not have I-bolts to hold it down. Put it in the back and heavy strap across the back. Keep the speed below 55 and had no problems. I covered about 20 miles. Short trip should not be a problem you would need a lot of wind to lift the camper.

Bill
 
If you can avoid highway speeds it may be faster just to drive slower and skip all the rigging. I drive mine about a two miles on 25mph roads shuttling between my house and friend's extremely large driveway without tying it down in any way whatsoever. Just lower it into the bed, retract the jacks and drive away. It is a Grandby on a long bed though, that's a consideration.

Not that I recommend my practice to others, but it works for me!
 
I strapped a granby to my short bed dodge with a couple ratchet straps when I bought it. I had corner jack brackets on the camper, but nothing on the truck. I would have simply gone over the top of the camper if it didn't have the brackets. The straps weren't exceptionally tight (didn't want to bend up the sheet metal on the truck). We didn't have any drama on the 200+ mile drive home @ 75mph.

YMMV
 
I drove mine home 50 miles at up to 50-60 mph without tie downs. I took corners easy and drove it like it wsn't tied down. But it didn't move at all.

Would I do it all the time? No - but I'd do it again.
 
If you've just got the metal truck bed surface, maybe some of that slightly sticky, rubber floor mat material would give some peace of mind, too!
That's what I've got under my camper.
Find it at the hardware store in a big roll, cut to length.
 
That's a good idea to just add some temporary eye-bolts....


If in a section that you are replacing and the wood is good you could probably just make a hole big enough that the hook of the ratchet strap locks in.

Angle forward and down to the attach points on the truck.

But natjwest makes a point. The difference in drag from
75mph down to 65mph is 25% (or drag at 65mph is 75% of drag at 75mph)
75mph down to 55mph is 46% (or drag at 55mph is 54% of drag at 75mph)

So for a small amount road time you can significantly affect the forces involved.

for your 150 mile trip:
19 minutes more for 65mph
43 minutes more for 55mph
 
If in a section that you are replacing and the wood is good you could probably just make a hole big enough that the hook of the ratchet strap locks in.

ding ding ding, this is exactly what we'll do.

Thanks everyone!
 
A few extra straps where possible is always a good idea.

If you put a strap over the camper roof, do NOT tighten it down.

The roof frame will probably bend a little if you crank a ratchet strap down over it.

It would be MUCH better to tie it down, bolt it down, strap it down in and around the truck bed area when possible.

If you have some decent ratchet straps, a cordless drill, and a small drill bit, you could drill some some small holes under the outter edges of the camper like he suggested.

If you separate the 2 pieces of the ratchet straps (ratched device side & the webbing with the hook side) drill your small holes under the outter overhang edges of the camper (this is wood), you can then go inside the camper with the strap portion that only has the webbing and the hook, thread the webbing strap through the small hole you drilled and pull down from the outside until the hooks jams up in the hole you drilled on the inside. Then attach both pieces of the ratchet strap outside and go the to the trucks rear bumber or under the truck bed to the truck frame. The benefit to this is that you will only need to drill very small holes in order to attach the straps.

Hope this helps.

:)



.
 
FYI if anyone needs to do this to get a camper home:

We put the keystone on a short bed ford with tailgate down.

We basically ran chain through the bedstakes, into the camper and into the other bedstake.

This worked for 200 miles.

It went on a half ton pickup just fine temporarily (no problems sagging, braking, or light steering)
 
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