Moving pop up camper tie down points.

[dbhost]

So the camper is a 1993(?) Sun Lite Eagle 2 8ft side sofa not dinette model. It has the tricycle jack arrangement, certainly lighter weight but, ugh... Anyway...

What I am wondering about is moving the anchor points / tie downs from the outer edges of the camper wings, to the area of the joint between the bottom tub and the wings where it makes the 90 degree turn.

I would like to anchor the camper to the factor built in bed anchor points instead of adding either stake pocket anchors which require drilling into the truck bed, OR frame mount which poses the possibility of the bed and frame flexing at different rates off road potentially tearing up the camper.

I would be more than happy with stake pocket anchors as long as they did NOT require drilling.

 

[NOPEC]

So the camper is a 1993(?) Sun Lite Eagle 2 8ft side sofa not dinette model. It has the tricycle jack arrangement, certainly lighter weight but, ugh... Anyway...

What I am wondering about is moving the anchor points / tie downs from the outer edges of the camper wings, to the area of the joint between the bottom tub and the wings where it makes the 90 degree turn.

I would like to anchor the camper to the factor built in bed anchor points instead of adding either stake pocket anchors which require drilling into the truck bed, OR frame mount which poses the possibility of the bed and frame flexing at different rates off road potentially tearing up the camper.

I would be more than happy with stake pocket anchors as long as they did NOT require drilling.

I think the issue these days is the trend towards lightening the weight of our vehicles and part of that is the continuing reduction of the thickness of the sheet metal in the pickup boxes, be it steel or aluminium. Several years ago, I had a set of commercial stake pocket anchors with a camper probably weight wise similar to yours. Although they worked, I always was worried about the sheet metal giving up if there was any major dynamic load put on one of the corners. The whole set up just seemed too light.

Same issue with the factory bed anchor points. They look very attractive and handy as a camper tiedown point but I would be concerned again with any type of ballistic load on them.

I don't think it would be very hard to move and attach the camper tiedown points from outboard to inboard, especially with a plywood tub on your camper but you would also need a way of accessing the front turnbuckle or spring loaded tiedowns, ie, potentially an access hatch in the camper. But again, I would want dedicated bed anchor points, well backed up which sadly would nix your "no bed holes" idea.

Be interested to see what others think.