at some point i will be getting a (used) slide in camper, but still want to be able to tie down heavy loads in the box when the camper is not in there.
d-rings mounted in the floor won't work for me. i could mount d-rings to the bed rails but i am concerned they will be creating quite a racket while flopping around over bumps when they are unused.
ideally, i would like to come up with something home-made, so my question is ... how much clearance is there between the top of the bed rails and the underside of a slide-in camper ? does it vary ?
thanks for any input.

 

Totally depends on the build of the camper and year of the truck. My '17 SD and AF811 have about an inch of space. Same camper had more on my '03 SD. I think you'll have to just get the camper measurement from floor to overhang and measure it against your truck.

 

Nuctrooper is right on the money, they are all different. With my 2017 Super Duty and Northern Lite 8.11 I have probably 5-6 inches of space between the top of my bed and bottom of the camper overhang. None of the truck camper combinations are the same.

 

x 3. way back when I bought my New F350 in 2001 the older camper I had (Lewis and Clark edition...lol) did not fit without spacers. Then I bought a 2004 Lance camper that fit perfectly. Then I buy a 2017 F350. Now I need spacer again.

 

E track attached to the bed sides. You also can bolt same to the front of the box.Only why to go.

 

I have a 2015 Lance 855s and it fits perfectly on my 2017 F-350 and I have plenty of clearance all around

 

For as long as I've been around truck campers, 40+yrs. I've learned that truck campers are a universal fit. When you compare the major Truck brands, from Studebaker's to new Super Duty, none of the manufactures used exact sizes between their bed rail heights or bed lengths. Like why new Truck Camper Shells/ Toppers are different sizes between truck brands.
After we narrowed our new camper choice down to 3, Northern Lite, Bigfoot and Lance. We chose the new 18' Lance. They were the only camper manufacture that modified their camper line to properly fit the 17' Ford Super Duty. So .. to speak, our new Lance 975 fits our F350 like it was made for it .

 

so the distance varies, that's what i needed to know.
thanks, everyone, for the input.