Permanent Mount?

Optimistic Paranoid · May 11, 2018

Hi all. New guy here with a question.

Here's the background: I'm recently retired and I have a low mileage 2012 Ford F250 Superduty with an 8 foot bed. I'm currently saving up to buy a new Alaskan Camper. Probably the non-cabover 10 foot. Once installed, I have no intention or plans of removing it from the truck, as I travel around the country more or less full time.

I'd like to avoid having those side legs and turnbuckles and so on. Can it just be bolted down inside the bed? Would they just bolt it to the factory bed directly, or do they bolt mounting brackets on the truck frame for this sort of thing, or what?

Any downside to permanent mounting, ie; it will eventually damage the bed, or anything like that?

Would love to hear any comments anyone who has a permanently mounted camper can provide.

Thanks.

Regards
John

Lou Schneider · May 11, 2018

Welcome to The RV Forum!

You can get away with bolting an Alaskan camper to the truck bed, but you'll have to make your own brackets to tie it to the truck frame. There's nothing but sheet metal under the pickup bed.

A taller camper would be basically balancing on it's 4'x8' footprint in the truck bed. All of the tipping forces have to be transmitted there through the camper's lower walls.

The outboard turnbuckles apply downward force to the edge of the camper walls, keeping them from tipping and in effect widening it's footprint to the full width of the camper. Again, this isn't much of a worry with the Alaskan camper.

Permanent Mount?

Optimistic Paranoid

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Lou Schneider

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