Truck/Camper Damage from Rough Roads?

[MarkBC]

Has anyone here ever had damage to your rig -- pickup with camper mounted on it -- from driving on very rough roads?

"Rough" could be bad washboard or rock-studded roads or deeply potholed roads -- road features that can severely jar/vibrate the rig.
"Damage" is mainly asking about truck damage, since the camper is so much simpler...though I guess there could be hidden damage to the camper frame...or something that might happen at either end of the camper-mounting turnbuckles..
I'm asking about personal experience -- happened to you or someone in your party, not something you heard/read about.

I just got back from a camping trip that included quite a bit of rough road -- bad washboard and rock-studded dirt and driving directly on rough bedrock...and I don't always drive gently...
...and though my truck and camper are still fine, AFAIK...as I was vibrating/bumping/banging along out there, at times it crossed my mind to wonder how much stress -- "punishment" -- my truck and camper can reasonably handle.
So I'm just asking -- kinda like a poll -- if anything bad has happened to anyone here driving in similar circumstances -- ??

A related question: Might there be any "effects" (things that need attention but aren't obvious to me) that happened on my rough-road driving trip that I or a mechanic could/should check for? Maybe things that aren't damaged but just loose, for example? Suggestions for what to check?


(This topic could go in the "Trucks, Truck Accessories..." forum, but posting it here in hopes of limiting input to experience with pickups with campers mounted on them...not horror stories of trucks/4X4s in general or passenger cars on roads they shouldn't be.)

Thanks!

 

[Spitfire]

I didn't have my camper on at the time but I took my truck over a severely washboarded National Forest road near Mt Adams and one of my power steering hoses came loose. I got extremely lucky as my destination was a campground and happened to find somebody in the campground with a wrench and some ATF which got me home. My Chevy truck has the hydroboost system where the power brakes get their power from the power steering pump so I really could have been in trouble.

 

[ntsqd]

Cottonwood Wash, UT. My wife's itinerary had us going north to Kodachrome on it, and it's a far piece to go around.

Road was "closed" with one A frame barricade. How bad can it be says I, we can always turn back if we have to. So up we went cautiously looking for why it was closed. Got to a puddle that was wider than the road. Stopped and looked it over. Sandy bottom looked firm, still to be on the safe side I thought to drive on the shallow side (to the left) and try to keep the LS tires on the semi-dry. About 2/3 of the way thru the rig slid sideways into the deep water. Instinctive response from years of driving a 22R is "gun it!" Only this is a 6BT Cummins, not a 22R.
AND there was a 4"-6" tall step submerged under the water.

Camper shifted stretching/distorting the mounts enough to make a divot and break the paint in the DS bed-rail about 5" aft of the front stake pocket. The DS "Happi-Jack" stake pocket mount is permanently bent. Phoenix apparently expects anchoring to happen off of the jack brackets because there are no other known hard points to tie it down from.

 

[Ted]

My experience is similar to Spitfires. Look for things that worked loose. My Father and I were in Mulege, Baja Sur. The whole way down it was rain, rain rain.Three bridges on Highway 1, the only paved road through Baja, were washed out behind us. It took a couple of days of severely wash boarded roads to get home. We lost a radiator hose and shock due to vibration working things loose. Have a mechanic do a thorough check of any and all bolts, nuts, etc.

 

[Smokecreek1]

I agree with the "Check everything crowd" all those bolts and things that could come lose do come lose. Specifically, I made a habit of checking my tie downs after every trip or super bad road, you know the fear of driving down the freeway and off goes the camper rolling down the freeway. Back to the tie downs, several years ago during my after trip checks (they say you don't need to check them that much after the first few trips-but I leave it on all the time), I discovered the right rear one got real lose and I could not twist it down anymore-what to do( I had all these visions of jacking this side up or taking the thing off and putting it back on again nice and tight. Then I looked closer and found that it (the fixture) had become partly undone at the base where you twist it, not the hook and eye bolt, but the fixture and a twist here and there and it was tight again.

A stupid check I do during my walk around is to see if the camper is still level-not shifted-on the truck bed-figure I may see something-if it had and an eye bolt had broken or something. The hot water heater door-lost that several times until I put on a catch to kept it on. Out of habit I always walk around the truck before I leave any camping spot and again at my first "dog and papa " stop down the road. All those years of bouncing around the back country at work and play made me always check everything out when I had some time-you know get ready to camp and discover your water cooler or spare tire fell off-you just have to develop a habit to check things out and what do we say here all the time-"be prepared for anything-because anything can happen when you are not ready for it. That help Mark!

Smoke

 

[craig333]

Not yet but something is making an annoying noise. I've looked but i can't see anything.

 

[Kolockum]

I am notorious for not driving sanely gently on dirt roads. I keep nailing the bottom of my rear quarter panels (between the rear axle and the bumper) and I have yet to figure out how, but I seem to be able to do it every trip. I have also knocked the auto transmission shifting cable out of alignment crossing a snow drift. Could not get it into park but luckily it was very easy fix. I have also vibrated both of my headlights out of the sockets, kinda looked like a strobe light show going down the rough dirt road.

Check everything. When I have a chance (at least 2 times a year) I will break out my torque wrench, torque spec sheet, Chilton Manual and a dead blow hammer and crawl underneath of the truck and meticulously go from one end of the truck to another. I check nut/bolts and the major ones, i.e. ones with specified torque listed, I use the torque wrench. Any nuts/bolts that are loose I use locktite to prevent it from happening again. Since I hate rattling noises I go the extra mile to find them. I take the deadblow hammer and randomly bang on solid components (axle, chassis, etc.) while listening for any abnormal sounds. I have found the source of many rattling sounds doing this.

I put about 10k of off road miles on my wrangler in 4 years. After a year or two of working on and driving the jeep I was able to start to recognize the normal sounds and abnormal sounds and I hope to get that way with my truck (its only been 9 months).

 

[craig333]

I have a new dead blow hammer. Perhaps next weekend when the temps go back into the eighties.

 

[Kolockum]

I have a new dead blow hammer. Perhaps next weekend when the temps go back into the eighties.

My only other tidbit about that is to keep an open mind. One time I couldn't seem to find the source of the rattle-ly/jingly sound emanating the rear driver side area of my truck, kinda up behind the spare tire (I was under the truck). After a while of not getting anywhere I took a break and grabbed the second to last beer out of my fridge. And when I got back to work, lone and behold the sound was gone. After further investigation and considering that was my first beer of the day I came to the conclusion it was the beer bottles rattling together in the fridge, not the beer dampening my senses. Although the latter is very is useful when your truck rattles like a set of cymbals crashing down a flight of stairs...

 

[camelracer]

I haven't had any problems with the truck but there has been some camper damage.

I lost a turnbuckle on the Devil's Racetrack road a few years ago. When I got home I installed jam nuts and haven't had any problems since.

FWC has repaired the rear wall twice do to cracking over the door. Hopefully the last repair solved the problem since the warranty has expired.

Lost the ammonia in the 3 way fridge in Baja last year. Replaced it with a 12v Truckfridge which seems to be working well.

I did the Mojave Road a couple of weeks ago and did some damage due to the narrow trail through a Joshua tree forest. Broke a roof clamp, lost both awning end caps, broke the side porch light and desert pinstriped everything.

During my inspection after the last trip I noticed that the horizontal floorpack piece in the area where the turnbuckles mount is pulling down from the vertical side panel. It's only about an 1/8 inch but I'm concerned that this could be a problem. I think FWC staples that joint but I'm not sure if they also glue it. Next time I have the camper off the truck I'll take a closer look and beef up that joint.

 

[LuckyDan]

I agree with the "Check everything crowd" all those bolts and things that could come lose do come lose. Specifically, I made a habit of checking my tie downs after every trip or super bad road,

Yup, a little pre trip walk around and look around is a good idea. Its saved me from grief a time or two. Our commercial drivers do one at the start of each trip/day and again within the first hour on the road.

you just have to develop a habit to check things out and what do we say here all the time-"be prepared for anything-because anything can happen when you are not ready for it.

The probability of having an "issue" emerge increases exponentially the farther you get from the parts store or repair shop. Studies on the internet prove it

Something I think helps is; if you are a " Quick Lube" or the like user, find a quality one that will really do a multi point inspection when ever you get your truck serviced. A competent and quality LO&F shop will look at your under carriage and under the hood for things out of place. Of course they probably won't do much with the camper except note how cool it is but the truck should get a good look over.

I guess I should offer an answer to your question. Yes I've acquired a few oop's and oh man's to both truck and camper over the years. The most recent have been a fog light bracket breaking at the mounts. an eye bolt on the camper trying to pull through and my munching the rear door though that was my stupidity and not following my own procedures, not the result of rough terrain. Probably the most catastrophic was loosening/cracking a a line on my fridge heading into the North Fork of the Crooked River years ago. A little food loss and a big mess on the back of the fridge. Tied with that was bending the tie rod on the same road. at another time. Luckily I was able to come across a stump in short order which combined with the strategic application of my tow chain and I salvaged both the weekend and the tie rod sorta.

Best Wishes....

 

[whizbang]

I've been down some bad roads, and not slowly or gently either.

I've seen no obvious damage, other than narrow road, tree paint scrapes, although I am probably beating my truck up and reducing its useful life. Ask me in another 100k miles....

So far, so good.

 

[MarkBC]

Thanks for your experience and input, guys.

One thing I didn't mention -- an unstated angle on this: I was trying to figure out if rough-road damage really is a likely enough issue that I should be taking steps to reduce the impact on the truck-and-camper -- such as by airing down the tires.
But I didn't want to ask about airing down -- there're already threads on that topic -- just wanted to determine if there's a real need for that. "Drive slower" is another possible step I could take...
I'm not a "better safe than sorry" guy -- I believe in worrying about risks that are likely, not all those that are possible.

So, sounds like rough-road issues are rare...or maybe they're only rare because most folks drive gently.
Thanks.

 

[ntsqd]

Last trip out I aired down. From 55 to 40. Mostly because I was with a group that had a leader who drove maddeningly slow and we were on washboard. I'm pretty sure that he'd never heard of the 40 mph option and only used the 4 mph option.

For our tentative up-coming Hole in the Rock trip I'll likely air down there too. Probably by the same amount as it seems to take the edge off w/o compromising control at speed.

 

[MarkBC]

....For our tentative up-coming Hole in the Rock trip I'll likely air down there too. Probably by the same amount as it seems to take the edge off w/o compromising control at speed.

As it happens, it was driving on the Hole in the Rock Road on my recent southern Utah trip (yet to be Reported) that inspired me to start this topic.
The washboard was bad...not as bad as Saline Valley, but pretty bad. But for the most part it worked to drive fast -- the "40 mph option" -- staying on top of the ridges. It got worse around the 30 - 35 mile point, but then slacked off and most of the washboard went away on the last stretch to the end of the road, maybe because most people don't go that far in.

 

[Otis]

I just found a couple of trim/siding screws that had worked loose, (one had fallen out). I snugged them up and on further inspection found that about every third screw was loose. We have put about 8k miles on the camper this year and some of those were gravel and rough road miles. AlCan, Cassiar, Top of the World Road, Cottonwood Road, and lots of random Oregon and Northen California roads. I just emailed FWC with a pic asking for some direction as to how I might "lock" these screws in. Hopefully there is a good fix available.

The only other rough road damage was an exploded can of beer after someone forgot to latch the fridge- or maybe that is for a different discussion!?

 

[ski3pin]

I just found a couple of trim/siding screws that had worked loose, (one had fallen out). I snugged them up and on further inspection found that about every third screw was loose. <snip>

When you snug up the screws add just a dab of epoxy to the threads. Epoxies can be released with heat. When you need to remove, heat the screw up with the tip of a soldering gun. It does take a little practice, just hot enough so the screw will turn. None of the screws in my cabinets, etc., come loose.

 

[Otis]

When you snug up the screws add just a dab of epoxy to the threads. Epoxies can be released with heat. When you need to remove, heat the screw up with the tip of a soldering gun. It does take a little practice, just hot enough so the screw will turn. None of the screws in my cabinets, etc., come loose.

Great suggestion, thanks -
a friend also suggested a spot of clear nail polish as a "lock" and I was wondering about using blue Loctite?
I'll also be curious to see what FWC suggests-

I like your solution though, sounds like it would be very solid - thanks again!

 

[mtn-high]

Heya Wanderers...long time no see.

Been almost a year since we sold the Hawk. (mounted on a 2004 tundra DC) I still read along here and there...and in the process I saw this thread and thought I'd comment.

Now I'm having wheel bearing problems....left rear side. After the third replacement...my truck is now at Toyota getting a new axle...on THEM (at 126K but they are still warrantying it)...thankfully. At $400-500 a pop..it was getting expensive...

Can't say "for sure" it was the weight of the camper or damage done while hauling the camper for those 5 years...but either way...I thought I'd post just the same.

Everything else is going OK. The land we bought has cured the wandering bent. No need to go look for a campsite when the place you own feels like a campsite. ;-)

Stop by sometime! Plenty of nice spots by the creek...

travel safe, all...

Pat

 

[mtn-high]

Got the Tundra back yesterday....

New rear axle...left side. New bearing left side. Of course it all had to be ordered in from Cali...so that made the Tuesday apt s-t-r-e-t-c-h into Thursday PM...

and then they trashed the ABS sensor putting it all back together...initiating another shipment from Cali and another 2 day wait. I'm so lucky that way. I usually just drop the truck off (it's 50 miles to the dealership) and leave it and I'm glad I followed my instinct and KNEW they wouldn't have the parts to fix it onsite. (another one of the perks of living in the mountains)

Hopefully this fix will take care of the (reoccurring) problem. Needless to say, the TOY-ota 1/2 ton Sequoia Pick-em-up just >>>ISN'T<<< beefy enough for these campers over the long haul. You 3/4 ton boys were right. LOL.

travel safe, folks.