FWC; Turnbuckle suggestions? Factory buckles are a joke.

[beef tits]

I was once told by the FWC dealer "anywhere you can take your truck, you can take this camper" - yeah right!

Busted a turnbuckle on my last trip. Camper was flopping all over the place with one buckle gone. Ended up ratchet-strapping it to my rock sliders. Those held better than the FWC turnbuckles.

I've already been through the whole "they come loose every 5 miles" nonsense and added nuts/lockwashers. Now they are simply bending and falling off... or breaking.

I'm not rock crawling. I drive a big heavy Tundra and am just driving up rough jeep trails and doing so very slowly. Every once in a while you need speed to make it up a snowy hill on your third attempt... then POP.

I understand that truck frames and beds bend and twist. Larger hard-sided campers usually run spring-loaded turnbuckles to help with this.

So what are you guys using to keep these in position? What they provide from the factory DOES NOT work unless you are pounding pavement 100% of the time.

 

[BritKLR]

Not sure if this helps but, I've run the torklift, frame mounted tie-down mounts and their spring loaded turn-buckles on everything from a massive Lance 1130, Lance 900 to Lance 815 and been on some crazy Colorado, Utah and NM trails with no breakage or coming loose. The most damage I had was leaning the whole truck and camper into a tree on an off-camber trail, creased the aluminum skin on the Lance but never lost the mounts. Goodluck!

True Frame Mounted Camper Tie Downs | Torklift International

Leading the camper tie down industry in strength, quality, advanced design and installation. Torklift TRUE frame mounted tie downs are far superior to all tie down systems available. The Torklift system is unique in its design and is patented. Four independent tie down points (with no belly or...

www.torklift.com

 

[beef tits]

Not sure if this helps but, I've run the torklift, frame mounted tie-down mounts and their spring loaded turn-buckles on everything from a massive Lance 1130, Lance 900 to Lance 815 and been on some crazy Colorado, Utah and NM trails with no breakage or coming loose. The most damage I had was leaning the whole truck and camper into a tree on an off-camber trail, creased the aluminum skin on the Lance but never lost the mounts. Goodluck!

True Frame Mounted Camper Tie Downs | Torklift International

Leading the camper tie down industry in strength, quality, advanced design and installation. Torklift TRUE frame mounted tie downs are far superior to all tie down systems available. The Torklift system is unique in its design and is patented. Four independent tie down points (with no belly or...

www.torklift.com

Thanks, I ran something similar on my old F250/Lance 815. They worked well but the FWC does not have external mounting points, they are mounted within the bed. I'd also prefer to avoid having more things sticking out on the sides to snag.

 

[Herbie]

What's the eye-to-eye spacing on the FWC bed mounts? I think the Torklift fast guns have an in-bed version that will go as short as 14".

 

[beef tits]

Fwiw,
Assuming that piece-o-crap turnbuckle is 3/8”. Its SWL is maybe 300 lbs. That RV company paid less than 5$ for it.
A proper forged steel 3/8” turnbuckle is about 1200 SWL. Obviously cost more.

Thanks. Ordered a set of 6" forged steel ones rated at 1,000 lbs each! FWC should take note of this and supply them with every camper. The stock ones are J.U.N.K. It was about $100 for the set. Might add a couple pounds to the truck but whatever.

 

[Climber Rob]

I switched over to the Torklift Derringer handles with ½" stainless shoulder eye bolts a couple of years ago. They don't loosen, are easy and fast to take on and off without needing to adjust, and are incredibly strong.

 

[alex_the_axe]

I've been using the torklift standard turnbuckles for a few years now. I like them much more than the standard FWC aluminum extrusion type turnbuckles.
Torklift Hook to Hook Turnbuckle - S9012

Does your Tundra have a plain steel bed? Spray on bedliner and/or a rubber mat will also help keep the camper from sliding around and working the turnbuckles loose.

 

[beef tits]

I've been using the torklift standard turnbuckles for a few years now. I like them much more than the standard FWC aluminum extrusion type turnbuckles.
Torklift Hook to Hook Turnbuckle - S9012

Does your Tundra have a plain steel bed? Spray on bedliner and/or a rubber mat will also help keep the camper from sliding around and working the turnbuckles loose.

I was originally running double layer (1.5"~ total) horse stall mats, because of the height of the tundra bed rails but boy are those heavy. Switched to a thin rubber mat and a sheet of 1.5" Foamular (25 psi) which on a completely flat surface should hold about 115,000 lbs across an 8'x4' sheet.

I figure even using 1/10th of that surface area (camper and bed have "slats") it should still 10x more than my 1,100 lb camper needs. The rigid board seems to be in good shape but I have not fully removed the camper and really looked at it thoroughly, it's possible that is damaged too. Foamular really isn't made for that.

 

[simple]

The word of a salesman aside, you're playing in the reality of physics and material strength and right now your finding the limits. If FWC specs a light duty turn buckle and it doesn't ever break on their test vehicles, they are either rolling slower or the truck system they are using is interacting with the camper in a different enough way to not cause failures. I wonder if your bed spacers are allowing the camper to bounce versus being a rigid system with the truck. Bouncing will result in really high shock loads.

Another way to look at this is that your truck camper system is putting fairly large dynamic loads through the tiedown points and that the broken turnbuckle was the fuse. If you increase the strength of the turn buckle you will have the same dynamic loading condition only the forces will now be higher. When the forces spike rather than breaking or deforming a turnbuckle the forces will ramp even higher throughout the system including the mounting points on the truck and mounting structure in the camper. Higher loads through the camper frame might be fine and they might not.

If your sure the camper isn't bouncing, I would look at making the connection with something that offers some compliance. Maybe these if they will fit your dimensions.

/turnbuckles/

 

[Alloy]

Clevis to Clevis turnbuckles have a higher rating. I've replaced the threaded pins with lynch pins

 

[JaSAn]

. . . Switched to a thin rubber mat and a sheet of 1.5" Foamular (25 psi) which on a completely flat surface should hold about 115,000 lbs across an 8'x4' sheet . . .

The Foamular is part of the problem. When you drive over undulating terrain and the truck and camper is swaying side to side there is enough force to compress the Foamular, resulting in loosening of the turnbuckle and then jerk. I went with solid wooden headers on each end of the Foamular for a solid resting place for the camper floor:

 

[craig333]

My camper is 17 years and I've never broken a stock turnbuckle. Lost one that got loose. I had one that got ripped out of the camper and FWC reinforced that failure point on newer campers. I don't run any kind of mat. Since adding lock nuts I havent' had a turnbuckle loosen up in years.

 

[Martyn]

FWC was testing a ratchet strap hold down system a few years ago, they supplied them to dealers to test. I don’t think they were every implemented but there was no reason why they wouldn’t have worked. Just be sure to use high strength straps.

 

[beef tits]

The sheet of Foamular has definitely seen some compression, at minimum;

 

[kmacafee]

If you run without your jacks, you could attack one end to the jack mounts and fab something for the other end to the frame, possibly.