Our truck camper has been moving around in the truck bed in an alarming way. The camper moved back 3 inches and side to side. We had to replace a quick link (Quick Links and Railroad Tracks), one of the components needed to hold the camper in place.
I had read Truck Camper Loading and Shifting: A Few Tips last fall. Based on what I read, if we wanted to take our camper down rough roads, we would need to install a rubber bed mat. I added a bed mat to my Amazon wish list.
I didn’t expect paved roads, high winds or high speeds (75 MPH) would also cause unacceptable camper movement. The truck bed has a Ford factory spray in liner similar to the Rhino liner I had in my last truck. One difference is that the Ford liner is more slippery than the Rhino liner I had before. It appears slippery liners make it too easy for the camper to slide around in the truck bed.
When the truck camper slides around, damage can occur. Damage to the bed and camper. While the bed damage looks slight, it will only get worse over time.
I inspected the underside of the camper to see if there was any camper damage to go with the gash in the bed liner material.
There appears to be some camper damage. It may just be cosmetic. I’ll have to ask my camper service folks to look at the photos to know if I need to bring the camper in.
I bought the bed mat on Amazon (Dee Zee DZ87012 NEW SUPER DUTY 8′ BED 2017). Ford also sells bed mats for their trucks on their accessories web site (Bed Mat – Impact, 8.0 Bed Part No: VHC3Z-99112A15-B). The Ford mat is thicker and more expensive. My primary concern is for the mat to limit camper movement. Either should work just fine.
The product description on Amazon didn’t give me a warm fuzzy. To make sure I was ordering the right bed mat, I went to the Dee Zee Bed Mat web page and looked up my truck. Dee Zee provided a part number. I matched the part number to the Amazon description and punched the order button.
The installation instructions said to unroll the mat backwards starting from the tailgate moving forward. Unrolling this way was was just plain awkward. The mat is heavy and stiff. Even so, I was done in 5 minutes with the mat perfectly in place. This mat is a perfect fit.
Pulling the installed mat back, you can see the underside of the mat.
With the bed mat installed, we loaded the camper. This is just our third time loading the camper by ourselves. It does get easier every time. This time loading went quickly, around 20 minutes. 20 minutes and we took our sweet time.
I didn’t make a before and after photo to show that the camper rides just a tiny bit higher than it did before. Looks to be less than 1/2 inch higher.
Now we don’t need to worry about the camper sliding around in the truck bed.
Hope to see you on the road ahead.