DirtWhiskey
Western Dirt Rat
Awesome detailed write up of these little beasts. I see a little to be desired in the welding side of things but they are half the price of FWC and they seem to be a good value. My buddy LOVES his.
I've had a Northstar TC800 for 20 yrs and two trucks with the Happijac system on both trucks. No chains,straps,just the quality steel hooks and adjustable tie downs. The Happijac setup contains centering cones up front for zero movement. It uses the button drilled into your bumper which looks substantial.Thanks for the feedback guys! One of my favorite things about this community is the level of detail you can pull out of these forums! Always a pleasure to give back in the same way.
On the tiedowns, why use chains and turnbuckles instead of straps? I've heard that you need to keep those tie downs tight, but not too tight, or it will pop the chain, damage the camper etc. Does anyone run a strap setup in their rig? Seems like a strap would provide the elasticity required by a shifting load better than a hand tightened turnbuckle.
This is what I've cobbled together, I need to change it but, not sure if I need to purchase Torklift frame mounts, build some kind of cradle like FWC uses or some other option.
Here is the front:
Tied into the frame with a carhauler strap:
On the rear, I had carhauler straps wrapped around the frame and then going to toklift turnbuckles and I was also thinking about tiesing the turnbuckles directly to the rear bumper as pictured.
Thoughts?
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Yes I think that’s how it’s intended to be used. I assume you have the truck charging the camper batteries? Don’t run the fridge on 12v when the truck is off.I am guessing that you run the fridge on DC while in transit and then switch over to Propane when you are in camp?
Tapatalk
The 4 year old sleeps in the dinette bench and the baby sleeps up with us in the bed.I was looking around for something on my mega cab and found these. I have 2 boys, 4 & 6 and tall for their age. How do your kids fit in the camper, the bench seems kind of small and my wife isn’t super comfortable putting them in their own tent, yet.
Also, have to say the Ram has been a great platform for this camper, I can't imagine a 550S on a 1/2 ton pickup. I know it can be done well, but that camper is a heavy package.
Exhaust brake is extremely sweet on mountain roads. We went down Pikes Peak and being able to hold a low speed without hitting the brakes was fantastic. High mountain passes in the ice/snow was also much more manageable with the exhaust brake.
The weight in the bed really settles the back end down and the Cummins still had plenty of power when I needed it to pass, merge, etc. Timbrens we're perfect, no issues with sway and rode like stock off-road.
We tend to talk a lot about off-road performance on here, but the highway is where the consequences are. Compared to my past vehicles (Excursion excluded) the Ram is a pig off-road, but I am happy with the compromise when I am barreling down the interstate.
I struggled a bit to maintain good tire pressure, found the sweet spot at 74 PSI in the rear tires when cold, heats up into the low 80s at highway speeds.
Ram boxes worked great for all the hoses, cables, etc that goes with these things. I was able to load all of my elk hunting gear in one ram box (except the bow), and kept all the tools, camper stuff in the other.
One post trip mod, drilled a hole in the top of the tailgate for the backup camera, I can relocate it when the camper is loaded. Works pretty good, was way cheaper than buying a Furion or another Ram camera. 3/4 drill bit and a clip is all it needed!
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You have pics of your setup?Thanks for all the details!
I just got myself a SS-550 for my wife and two small kids, also in a cummins with factory backup camera, I saw the pre wired backup, then got the idea of doing a basic license plate camera and finding the pin out in the tailgate harness then only to realize the tailgate needs to stay on because of how much it hangs past the bed how did you do the camera here? just take it out of the factory housing and move it to the hole?
TIA!