Slide-on tiedowns for a CC D130 Puma

[austastar]

Hi,
I hope to order a slide on camper in the new year, and have made some tie downs to bolt to the chassis.

The front ones were made when I had the tray off, and had access to the chassis where I wanted to mount them.
A cut down chain shackle is welded through a piece of 2mm walled 20mm RHS which is held to the chassis rail both with a piece underneath the rail and a plate on the inside of the rail with bolts through existing holes in the chassis rail. The top fits into a 'pocket' in the existing chassis, the purpose of which is not clear to me, but it looked strong enough.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/12/1311.jpg

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/12/1312.jpg

The rear tie downs were made to fit in with a recently obtained towbar.
These were made from 8mm x75mm and are held in place with the bolt from the original vehicle tie down that is used to locate the front arms of the towbar.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/12/1313.jpg

Normally the towbar is mounted using the original tie downs as a spacer, but by using the same thickness steel, the new ones slip in between the towbar arm and the chassis rail. The original tie downs are designed for a downwards pull in restraining the vehicle during transport, the pull from a slide on is up towards the edge of the tray, and they looked to fragile for that angle. I had to trim a bit of the tow bar arm, as it was rubbing against the plastic fuel tank.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/12/1314.jpg

I can hang the tow bar by the front bolts and slip the new rear tie down between it and the chassis rails, and lift the towbar up to its rear mounting bolts fairly easily and adjust the angle of the tie downs to sit tight against the bottom of the chassis so very little bending moment is applied to my welding.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/12/1315.jpg

At the moment every thing has a new coat of gloss black paint and is hanging in the garage to dry.
I hope to put it together and get some pickies up tomorrow if all goes well.

cheers

[austastar]

Hi,
With a finished coat of paint on the bits, it was time to put the thing together and bolt it down.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/12/1290.jpg

I'm quite pleased with it so far, I did have some trouble with some mounting points on the tow bar. They needed holes drilled in the back chassis member rather than using existing mounted threaded nuts, a bit annoying.
Also annoying was the fact that one nut to go on the inside of the rear chassis member was accessed by a hole that got covered with the towbar. A wire tag welded to the nut enabled it to be placed through another hole.
Another bolt nearly clashed with an existing bolt holding the fuel tank in place.

The front ones will be fitted later - I'm still considering rebuilding them - just a tad concerned they are not strong enough.

Now, would any one else who has a slide-on, tray-on or similar be willing to put up some photos of their tie down points. I'm sort of on my own down here and haven't seen how others have been done.

cheers