tie downs turnbuckles vs ratchet straps

[krs1]

hello everyone i have a 1999 palomino pop up in my toyota tacoma and have wondering what the pros and cons to these to tie down systems are i understand everyone uses turnbuckles but why not ratchet straps? my camper weighs about 1100lbs and loaded with gear maybe 1500 lbs my turnbuckles kept coming loose so im trying straps they are 1000lbs rated and i have 4 attachment points with steel plates on the interior of camper. just curious what the thoughts are etc all info helps thanks

 

[krs1]

anyone have experience or opinions?

 

[longhorn1]

The turnbuckles need to be at an angle, so if they are straight up and down that is a problem. Do you have a rubber mat in the bed? I think straps are high risk, low reward, maybe to transport home but not perminent. If the camper manufacturer's considered this a viable method it would be offered. I don't want to rain on your party, just my 2 cents worth. jd

 

[krs1]

I posted to recieve everyones advice and coments reguardless if i agree or notthe turnbuckles are at an angle just kept loosening when i drove down dirt roads i rebuilt them and added a locking nut so thats prob the route will go and use the straps as a backup. thanks for the 2 cents

 

[Bigfoot]

What kind of turnbuckles are you using? And what exactly is coming loose? Spring-loaded turnbuckles such as the Torklift AnchorGuard or FastGun do not loosen if properly installed. On some types a lock nut is advisable. Agree that ratchet straps are only for temporary use.

 

[craig333]

As a backup its a fine idea. One if these days I'll get off my duff and install a strap as a shtf backup.

 

[DanoT]

My Phoenix camper came with ratchet straps and they have not been a problem in the 6+ years that i have had the camper. My 8.5' camper sits on a mat in a 3/4 ton Dodge diesel and the fully loaded camper weighs close to 3000 lbs.

 

[Hunterbuild]

been using ratchet straps for my sky-lite. Do a lot of back roads in 4 wheel. So far so good.

 

[Bigfoot]

Since we started using tie-down straps the truck accelerates so much better!

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Since we started using tie-down straps the truck accelerates so much better!

Slippery little suckers

 

[Hamer95USA]

I bought a used Six Pac Model 88 camper a couple of weeks ago from a local Craig's List seller in Hollister, CA which fits my Toyota Tacoma perfectly in the truck bed. I brought my ratchet straps to tie down the camper to transport it home and had the seller attach the ratchet straps to the camper since he knew the camper dimensions well.

My experience from this scenario: I drove the camper home with cross winds on the highway going around 55mph to 60mph. The camper being top heavy with the crosswinds blowing and being installed in a bed with a plastic bedliner was a white knuckle ride for me. My truck with its stock leaf springs was bottom heavy with the front of the truck slightly facing upward. The windy condition was rocking my truck around and I stayed in the slow lane except to get around the semi-trucks. I didn't like the fact that the plastic bedliner made the bed slippery for the camper with the heavy winds and highway speed. I should have bought the rubber mat before I purchased the camper and brought it home. This made me feel very uncomfortable on the ride home as I didn't want the scenario of that picture of the previous post with a camper dropped on the road way.

Fortunately for me, the ratchet straps that I brought with me, held the camper in place without the need to retighten the straps during the trip home. After my first drive home with that camper, I've already bought a set of Torklift tiedowns. My next upgrades are to remove the plastic bedliner, have a sprayed in bed liner, buy a Dee Zee heavy weight rubber bed mat to go under the camper, and a set of Deaver springs and possibly the Firestone Ride Rite air bags for my truck. I won't be judgemental of what other people use on their truck camper rigs, but my IMHO, ratchets straps are good for temporary use for transporting a camper if you have don't have proper camper tiedowns or as a backup if your tiedowns fail. I wouldn't want to use them as a permanent installation on a camper that weighs a half ton or more.

 

[kmacafee]

Turnbuckles, even upgraded with locking nuts, do not give me the piece of mind needed when driving offroad. After a few years of worrying about turnbuckle integrity, I now use dogbones and carabiners as my primary means of attachment. The turnbuckles are still there as backup but the dogbones are simple, easy to install and hold the camper securely in place. And, they are significantly stronger that the turnbuckles to hold a 1000 pound camper where it should be.

 

[ntsqd]

This kinda goes back to an old thread debating the merits of rigid (turn-buckles) vs. elastic (ratchet straps, Tork-Lifts, etc.) methods of holding the camper down.

I see the elastic hold-downs as being ideal at no time. I get why the Tork-Lifts exist and I think it's a band-aid to the problem of less than strong enough anchoring designs. They're intentionally allowing some compliance in the coupler to keep the anchors from being permanently distorted by an inertial force. In no other highway loading is this found. The closest that I can think of is a flatbed using straps to cinch the load to the truck. While technically those straps are minimally elastic, there are so many of them vs. the load that no inertial force is going to cause them to stretch.

Nylon webbing stretches. It can be made to minimally stretchy or it can be made to be very stretchy, but it all stretches to some degree or other. Then factor in the UV and ozone degradation coupled with fatigue life and I think they're a poor choice for other than emergency or temporary use.

Contrast that with steel, which is not stretchy at anything close to the forces achievable by a camper, does not have a fatigue life and has no idea what UV and ozone are. Seems like the better choice to me.

I safety-wired our front turn-buckles and they have yet to loosen. The rears don't have an easy means to use safety wire so I tried simply using red lock-tite. I've had to re-tension those about once a year and after what ~4 years they're due for more lock-tite being applied. We did have a pin pop-out of one front turn-buckle on the last trip (Mojave Rd.) and I knew something was wrong almost immediately because I could hear the camper making noise that it does not normally make. Stuff loaded next to the pin caused the cotter pin to eject and allow the pin to work it's way out. They now are safety-wired in place and nothing short of a wire cutter is going to pop those "cotter pins" out.

I do not simply drive pavement, we go places that can be a very long ways from the end of pavement. This is ascending "The Wall" on the back way into Lunar Crater:

And this is Coyote Flat over-looking Funnel Lake at just below the treeline:

 

[Bigfoot]

This kinda goes back to an old thread debating the merits of rigid (turn-buckles) vs. elastic (ratchet straps, Tork-Lifts, etc.) methods of holding the camper down.

I see the elastic hold-downs as being ideal at no time. I get why the Tork-Lifts exist and I think it's a band-aid to the problem of less than strong enough anchoring designs. They're intentionally allowing some compliance in the coupler to keep the anchors from being permanently distorted by an inertial force. ...

My understanding is that rigid mounts put too much stress on the camper and the truck. That's why expedition rigs have a flexible mounting system that absorbs the stress of the camper moving and the truck frame flexing. Those of us with slide-in campers have to be even more careful because a sudden jolt could tear out a camper tie-down or damage the thin truck bed. Spring-loaded turnbuckles such as the Torklift combined with a bed pad work well. Of course, if you have success with a rigid system or others have used straps without problems, then that's great. However, I will stay with the proven Torklift system.

 

[ntsqd]

Most Expi trucks are close to twice our length or more, and have suspension springs that really don't flex much. So their chassis ends up being the articulation mechanism. If the bed were rigidly mounted to the chassis it would cause localized stress zones in the chassis that could potentially be a very big problem.

I see the inertial loading induced stress from the camper moving (figure at least 3 times the camper's static mass) and then being "caught" by the anchoring system as being a far, far bigger stressor of all involved. Can't generate that inertia if the camper can't move independent of the truck. Big hard-side campers are a totally different mounting situation than our comparatively very light pop-tops and applying solutions for them to our situation is misguided. The problem is that few RV center people really understand this application and fall back to the only thing really "known." Look at what FWC and ATC supply to anchor their campers. That ought to be telling as to what the situation really merits. That some of those turnbuckles open up their hooks is more about the unit cost than being a design flaw.

If you're happy with the Torklifts I sure wouldn't try to persuade you to change them out as that would be futile and pointless, but I think they're over-kill and unnecessary for campers in the pop-top's weight range.

 

[Bigfoot]

Most Expi trucks are close to twice our length or more, and have suspension springs that really don't flex much. So their chassis ends up being the articulation mechanism. If the bed were rigidly mounted to the chassis it would cause localized stress zones in the chassis that could potentially be a very big problem.

I see the inertial loading induced stress from the camper moving (figure at least 3 times the camper's static mass) and then being "caught" by the anchoring system as being a far, far bigger stressor of all involved. Can't generate that inertia if the camper can't move independent of the truck. Big hard-side campers are a totally different mounting situation than our comparatively very light pop-tops and applying solutions for them to our situation is misguided. The problem is that few RV center people really understand this application and fall back to the only thing really "known." Look at what FWC and ATC supply to anchor their campers. That ought to be telling as to what the situation really merits. That some of those turnbuckles open up their hooks is more about the unit cost than being a design flaw.

If you're happy with the Torklifts I sure wouldn't try to persuade you to change them out as that would be futile and pointless, but I think they're over-kill and unnecessary for campers in the pop-top's weight range.

I'm not really following your logic. Pop-ups may weigh less than large expedition campers but the truck bed and frame are also light duty. I don't think rigid mounting of my 1600-lb pop-up would be good for the camper or my truck, and indeed Hallmark recommends that the rear tie downs should have some play. Likewise the XPCamper V2 compact pop-up has a suspension system that allows for separate movement of the camper. Also, some previous threads from FWC-Taco owners noted bent mounting bars from the load caused by off-roading and that external, spring-loaded turnbuckles worked better. Of course, every setup and use are different so we each have to decide what is best for our needs.

 

[ntsqd]

How many loads on flat-bed tractor-trailers do you see with springs in their binders? Perhaps this is because their load is usually a stiff item too where our campers are not. If this is the case then the reason for springs is to keep the truck frame's twisting from tearing up the camper. Yet our tie-downs do not have springs and I have no indication that the camper is suffering for it.

For me it is not enough that an mfg. does or doesn't do something. I want to know why they are or are not doing it before I'll follow their lead. I've seen plenty of cases where "that's the way we've always done it" resulted in problems that they hadn't connected to the way they've always done it. In spite or, and sometimes because of their depth of experience the mfg's are no more infallible than the rest of us. We all have our blind-spots.

 

[Backroad Joe]

There are a wide spectrum of opinions on tiedown methods on various forums as we all know. Some border on the ridiculous. I've even seen a post recommending chain type load binders. 20k WLL. There are many that feel a extreme amount of tension is required to hold a camper on. Working load or capacity and pre-loading are two completely different elements.

As far as the OP's query, I would not recommend ratchet straps for permanent attachment. The strap is prone to degradation over time. Sure truckers use the big, wide straps but they are constantly inspected and replaced at regular intervals or the first sign of wear. My camper is only on my Ram 2500 for trips, which are off-road and can be very rough.

In the front I have HappiJac spring-loaded tiedowns and good quality hardware store variety turnbuckles in the rear. I have a DeeZee rubber mat and use guide blocking as seen in the picture below. The guide blocking has about a 1/4" of clearance on each side.

When I load the camper I put some pre-load on the front spring turnbuckles and leave the rear ever so slightly loose for the first several miles to let the camper "find it's spot" then I hand tighten for the highway. When I leave pavement I stop to air-down the tires and I adjust or reconfigure the tiedowns based on expected terrain. If it's mild I'll leave the front alone and ease off the rear so there is some slack. If I expect rough trails were the truck chassis will experience substantial twisting I ease the front so there is minimal pre-load. This allows the full range of spring travel. The rear is loosened to substantial slack. I then run a ratchet strap from the bottom of the front tiedown to the eye bolt under the rear of the camper, each side. This is near horizontal with a slight lean. The guide blocks are key in this configuration as they essentially limit sideways movement. The straps pull the camper forward into the bulkhead but since they are near horizontal they will allow torsional movement. Gravity does a lot of the work here and I avoid hitting bumps or dips fast enough to jounce the camper, well, honestly to avoid shaking up the beer in the fridge.

This method has worked very well for me as it keeps the camper in place without stressing eyebolts and thus the structure and allows the truck to twist at it's own rate and not tear up the campers structure in the process. I think many people don't realize how much twist there is in these truck chassis. I've learned this over many years of running my old trail Jeep which has a very flexible c-channel frame to compensate for the stiff leaf springs and lack of articulation (by design or not). In fact they are notorious for the clutch linkage seizing up when the chassis is radically twisted.

 

[craig333]

Hear ya on the Jeep linkage problem. I put blocks in to do the same thing but they move around. Next time its out I'll do like you've done.

 

[Kenny&Sharron]

Since we started using tie-down straps the truck accelerates so much better!

heh ! that is great ! they got off light for a large error