Camper Tie Down: In Need of Feedback

[Bucky]

Is the camper a pop-up? What does it weigh?

Regarding the flex on the pickup bed, I see that when I have the FWC Hawk on the truck; it's normal.

I think you're getting more side to side sway because you have the camper elevated by what looks like 6 inches, raising the center of gravity. I know the outside storage is neat, but you might be sacrificing stability for that. Does the camper fit between the wheelwells? If so, and it was me, I'd get it down as far as possible. In my case, I have the Hawk sitting on six 2x4s layed flat on a rubber mat in the new truck, because the tailgate corners are radiused and the bedrails are higher than on the '03 Sierra.

It looks like you've done your homework with the anchor points. That should be plenty of holding power for a pop-up. In fact, I had a thread going here where I detailed how I used only the OEM tiedown loops with the Hawk on the new truck, for over 8,000 miles without a problem. So, I think you can be confident in your tiedown system.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/71655-Using-OEM-bed-tiedown-loops

Apart from the high center of gravity, I think you're good to go.

Good luck.

Bucky

 

[Bucky]

Very nice. That is what I had in mind too. Is that a swiveling eyebolt?

Also what kind of driving do you do with the camper? Everywhere I look I hear people saying to never bolt only to the bed. Are you only in the sheet metal?

As far as I know, FWC still does factory installs by using cast eyebolts bolted directly to the bed only. That's how the FWC guy installed the '04 Hawk on my '03 Sierra.

Bucky