Stake pocket question

[B-Ark]

Greetings Gents,

I'm currently in the process of designing a new mounting system for my light-weight pop-up camper (about 1200 lbs, with total height of 8' mounted on the truck). When I got the unit, the dealer installed "belly bars" attached to the frame, and then chains with turnbuckles up to the camper. This seems to work reasonably well, but it totally ruins ground clearance for off-road exploring.

I have looked at the Happy Jac system, and it looks reasonable, but I think I can have more fun by building my own.

I've got 9 pages of drawings of the new system, but in a nutshell, it consists of either rectangular or channel sections that drop into the 4 corner stake pockets. To the top of each of these is welded a horizontal bar that spans the 18" side overhang of the camper. These will be bolted to the bottom of the camper overhang. Its a bit more complicated than this, but that's the essence of it.

My question concerns the strength of the stake pockets. I'm planning on welding a couple of nuts inside the vertical channel, and then using 3/8" grade 8 bolts through two sides of the stake pocket frame. Is the stock sheet metal sturdy enough to hold all this? All the bits that I'm fabricating will be 3/16" metal.

I've also considered reinforcing the front stake pockets by running a bit of metal down and bolting it to the floor.

I'm thinking that the greatest stresses will occur on the front mounts while going down the highway at 70 mph with a stiff head wind. Does anyone have any idea of how much lifting force might be created in this situation?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

[illflem]

After trying to figure out how to mount my 1500 lb Alaskan pop-up I finally called Alaskan. They told me to just drill four holes though the floor of the camper, inside the cabnets, though the bed and bolt it useing large fender washers. I drilled the holes near cross supports of the bed, just two layers of sheet metal. Happy to say that after tens of thousands of miles of campering this simple system works just fine. It may not work for a regular camper (rip the floor off) but with less wind effect on a pop-up you can get away with it.



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Speaking of ripping the floor off, a warning, I learned the hard way. After driving though rain into freezing weather don't try to remove your camper until it thaws. My camper floor stayed with the bed.

 

[Archive]

I would be concerned about the strength of the pockets... if you check into the happyjack attachments, they will not install them without a bar across the front of the bed to stiffen it up. Just makes me wonder about the pockets.

 

[Dieselnerd]

I used stake pocket mounts which are available almost everywhere on a pop-up camper in my previous Chevy truck. It was a 4x4, I drove it to Alaska and also went off road many times. I never had any problems. The trick to any camper mounting to avoid problems is to keep the front mounts fairly tight and run the rears just tight enough to keep the camper from bouncing. When going over uneven pavement or off road, the rear of your bed twists while the front stays fairly straight. By leaving the rear mounts loose the bed can twist under the camper without putting so much stress on the tie downs. I learned this from an old timer that ran a lot of off road campers and never had any problems. I noticed the "Earth Roamer" in the last issue of TDR used a similar system, 2 solid mounts in the front and a center mount in the rear to allow for twisting. I use Happi-Jacs on my current Dodge set up and also leave the rears fairly loose.

 

[BV]

Camper Mounts

I have to agree with the information provided and wanted to through another suggestion your way and that was to use the cargo loops that are already in the bed at the front and back - Of course this would only work if you had access, or gained access from the camper to the bed area while it was loaded.

 

[Deezul1]

I have seen a number of wrinkled beds on various brands of trucks that came from using the stake pocket type tie downs. any type of fastening system that use a attaching point to the frame should work well but the bed pockets are only light sheet metal with some re-inforcing, not very strong. Try putting a piece of pipe in the stake pocket and have someone pull it in different directions and watch the bed flex.

Good luck

 

[RobG]

I have a little-used HappiJack setup that I saved from my '96, will make a real good deal on it to anybody who wants it. Includes the spring-loaded turnbuckles and the cross-bar for the front of the bed.



I've since gone to the frame-mounted Torklift setup.



Rob

 

[JR2]

My brother purchased a little pop up like you are speaking of. When the guy droped it off I noticed the front of his ford bed was bent down and had wrinkled the side of the bed. He was using the stake pocket tie downs. I think when we mount my bros new camper we will just bolt it down, 2 in the front and one in the back seems like it would work. .