Bed Liners and Truck Campers

It's a common question among those new-to-truck-camping: Do I leave my bed liner in the truck bed when I load the camper, or take it out?

Before giving you the consensus answer, let's ask another question: What kind of bed liner? Obviously "spray on" bed liners aren't going anywhere. However, there remain two other kinds of bed liners: The big plastic "protects your sidewalls and bed floor," and the rubber mat style that simply protects the floor of the bed. We happen to have the latter installed in our truck bed.

Consensus of users? If it's the big plastic kind, take it. Why? The most often cited reason is that the camper can slide around on the slick plastic liner, giving you a less-than-desirable issue of stability. In some cases, the extra space taken up between the wheel wells (in order to protect them) may make loading difficult--if not impossible--particularly with campers that have a wide "box" or "tub" as some call them. Many also bring up negative issue of lugging the extra weight of the bed liner around for no good purpose.

In our case, our truck also yanks around a fifth wheel. Rather than remove the fifth wheel hitch rails (a difficult job) we've left our rails in place. This leaves large areas of the truck bed "lower" than the hitch rails. To fill the gap, as it were, we measured the height of the hitch rails above the bed (and liner) and cut piece of plywood of suitable height to go around the rails. The camper sits on both the hitch rails and the plywood, and seems to "like it" thus far. We've found the rubber mat holds the plywood in place better too, so we've left it in place.

Make That Outside Shower Do Double Duty

A lot of truck campers are rolling off the assembly lines with "outside shower" fixtures. Open the door on the side of the rig, and there resides a typical cheapo RV shower head and a mixing valve setup. Our mechanically inclined friend Dave uses his to rinse off the spent hand-cleaner n grease before he gets back in his rig. Says it really makes life with Shirley a whole lot easier.


If you use your outside shower for these types of more utilitarian functions (how about rinsing off Rover after he's been chasing gulls down the beach?) you might consider a bit of a switch out. Why not trade in your shower head for a garden hose end? With that in place, you can hitch up any length of garden hose (or fresh water fill hose) to your mixing valve, and at the "business end" of the hose, put on a handy "lever type" garden hose sprayer.

What's required? Check out your handy hardware store and ask about a male hose to MIP adapter--a WATTS A-663 may be just the device you need. The adapter screws into the end of your existing hose and makes it 'look and act like' a 3/4" male garden hose fitting. Some folks forsake the garden hose, and simply extend their existing "shower" hose with requisite fittings. Where do they put the excess hose? If the camper shower stall is next to the outside shower box, some have found that there's plenty of space between the shower stall and the camper shell wall. By cutting a small "stuffing" hole in the outside shower control box, they push that hose away inside.

Timbren Suspension--The Rubber Donut Boost

Many truck camper newbies are dismayed when they stick old "TC" on the back of their truck when the old pickemup "Squats to rise." What happened? A lot of weight on the back of the old truck can be almost more than the poor beast is ready to cope with. What's to be done? Provided the truck is rated to carry the actual load, and the trouble is more a matter of redistributing the weight, there are several approaches that may be workable. What's often required is "beefing up" the rear suspension system.

Air bag suspensions are nice: The simple press of a button in the cab operates a small, truck-mounted air compressor that adds or releases air from the "bags" to match the load weight. The drawback? Expensive! A typical set of airbags for a Ford F-250 pickup can set you back $250, and you'll wind up tossing in another $250 for the air compressor system. If you can install them yourself, great, if not, there's always the additional cost of labor.

You could trade out your standard shocks for load adjustable "air shocks." A far less expensive approach, the drawback here is that if the load is great, air shocks won't cut it. Back in our early truck camper days where we toted a tiny slide in camper on our faithful old Datsun pickup, air shocks were great. We didn't use an onboard compressor, but simply used a service station air line, or our battery operated tire inflator. Our latest slide-in rig, however, a 3,000 pound behemoth, simply laughs at our air shocks. No amount pumping will move that truck bed up even a hair's breadth.

Another solution we used on an earlier truck and camper combination was that of overload springs. These "add on" leaf springs installed over the top of the factory springs gave the "give" needed for the job at hand. Not as expensive as air bags, but most decidedly heavier, the lift was just enough. Trouble was, even though they were touted as "load adjustable," meaning they supposedly "kicked in" as the load increased, they stiffened up the ride so bad when the camper was off the truck that your back (and backside) felt like you'd spent too many dollars on the bull-riding machine at the corner honky-tonk.

When we broke down and bought yet another truck camper (that gives us three RVs in our fleet now), we knew the air shocks wouldn't cut it, and didn't want to wear out the chiropractor's welcome mat by using overload springs. We were just about ready to give in to airbags when, woopsy! an Internet search brought us a whole new wave: Timbren SES. The SES stands for suspension enhancement system. Timbren is a Canadian firm that's been in the business of manufacturing hollow rubber springs for decades.

One of the beauties of the Timbren system is its simplicity. No hole drilling, no air line routing. For us it was jacking up the truck, removing two existing rubber "bump stops," and bolting in the two Timbren suspension springs. These stiff rubber springs bolt onto the frame and sit above the axle.

With the big camper on the bed of the truck, prior to installing the Timbren system, we measured 9" of clearance from the bottom of the bumper to the ground. After installation, we reloaded the camper and re-measured: 16" inches of clearance now greeted the tape measure. That's a whale of a lot of lift for a couple of little rubber donuts. But the proof is in another food group, as they say, "in the puddin."

Road testing showed a great improvement in several areas. Of course, it was much nicer looking down the road, instead of above the horizon line. On bumpy routes and when braking, the problem of porposing was eliminated. Side sway was greatly reduced, and corner tilting--a favorite white-knuckle activity of the navigator--became a nonevent. All the way around, stability was beefed up, and those "top heavy blues" had their volume turned way down.

We also took the loaded rig out into the back country for a little spin around the desert. Bumps and rip-rap steadied out, and it became a pleasure to be behind the wheel. All in all, the whole effect was one of control.

How about cost? If you check out the Timbren web site, they'll direct you to a nearby dealer. Of course, a web search will also locate Internet sales outfits. One we checked out, Stagel Brothers, listed our F-250 kit for $155 with shipping included free. Compare that to about $500 for airbags and a compressor and the math says you've got plenty of cash left over to spend on those other food groups. Check out Timbren SES on the web at www.timbren.com, or call Toll-Free: (800) 263-3113 or (905) 683-5991

Slick Video Promotes German Truck Camper

Ah, those clever Europeans. They've got a beautiful countryside to see, what better way to do it than with a truck camper. But on a continent where fuel prices make our current pumps look downright attractive, there aren't a lot of 1 ton "dooley" pickups running around to tote some of the behemoth luxury TCs from here in the states.

Enter the Knaus Traveller X -- just the thing to tote on your "import" truck. And what better way to advertise it than to put together a slick video promo, complete with blonde wife, blonde daughter, and healthy, athletic looking dad. The design is certainly different than what we're accustomed to here in the states--note the "over the wheel wells" design. If you speak a little German you'll get a lot more out of this vid than my high-school-dropped-out-of-German-class abilities, but nevertheless, there's plenty to be learned here. Click here to view the video. Auf Deutch!

And by the way, if you look quick with your click, you can bid on a Traveller X on eBay. You'll have to figure out how to get it from Kiel, Germany, but at the current bid of 3,010.02 euros, it may be a bargain at a bit over $4,000.00 US.

Photo: eBay.com