Am buying an '88 Play-Mor 9' truck camper. Towing in my '01 F-350 7.3L.
I estimate the weight to be 2500 - 3000 pounds. I will be driving fairly good Nat'l Forrest roads but will occasionally get into some rough stuff ( I know me).
How safe will tying it down with turnbuckles at the existing corner tie downs in the pickup bed be? I won't have a lot of money invested in the camper, and don't really want to spend another $300.00 on a system like the HapiJak.
Suggestions.............?

 

When we had PU campers I made a frame mount for the front and tied the back to the bumper. The front one was made with square tubing attached to the frame and the back was just a piece of angle iron attached to the bumper, I used chain and turn buckles from the mounts to the camper. With the box mount that's in the box of a SD I'm sure the box mount would work for the rear chains.

Denny

 

I've never had problems on the pickup end, it's always been on the camper. Older slide in's have seen a lot of weather and many times not much attention paid to the tie down hooks. The wood gets old, weathered, starts to de-laminate, hooks get loose, corner jacks start to pull off.

Then you get creative with aluminum angle and channel.

 

This is what I have used since I bought my camper in 2005. I picked my setup used on eBay and saved quite a bit of money on mine. It is the best and safest setup in my opinion.

Torklift Tie Downs

 

i'll second the tork lift tiedowns ..
i had the happi jack tie towns on my '01 250 , yea they do the job .
but the torklifts are much better !!
there is np way i would use the tie down brackets in the bed of the truck .

 

There is a forum similar to FTE that is dedicated to truck campers; it is a part of the NATCOA site (North American Truck Camper Owners Association).
North American Truck Camper Owners Association
NATCOA FORUM
You will find a wealth of information there. My personal advice is ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY DO NOT USE the pickup inside bed tiedowns. They are simply small bolts through sheet metal. I have an '08 450 and almost tore one of the forward tiedowns right out of the bed tieing some boxes down. I would only use the Torklift products, they are far superior to the Happijac system. A 3000 pound camper bouncing on a rutted National Forest road that is not properly tied down will do more damage to the camper and truck than the Torklifts would have cost.