Anyone have experience with an overhang like this?

I have to expand on this comment earlier.

Imagine the average weight of this object and the average bolt that's provided to mount it. Now imagine that a typical car wreck happens to be a 3 millisecond deceleration of anywhere between 15 and 50 times the gravitational force (hitting a brick wall at 30mph is 30G's) AND the direction of that deceleration happens to be exactly lined up with the bolt's weakest plane of shear strength.

Now do you trust a 150 pound missile that's aimed at your melon to be fully restrained by four Home Depot grade carriage bolts? I sure as shit don't.


Also, let's talk about what's really going to happen. The first time you back that truck up, you're going to misjudge your overhang (because you can't see it from your driver's seat) and you're going to send it through your rear glass. Hopefully at a speed slow enough that the rear glass is all it's going through.


Put that thing on the roof as others have said.

 

Would recommend checking local laws, think anything 12" past taillights requires marking where I am. Not only a problem if LE wants to be a pain, but if you get rear ended you could end up with insurance denying coverage if your vehicle was not properly marked for the road

 

Even though the center of gravity is forward, its not by much. Most of the weight of the tent will be on the back bar. Will put a lot of stress on the rear of the bed (youll want to get bed stiffeners) and the RTT itself will have a lot of flex in it - both driving down the road and when you get in it.

 

I think you should rethink this tent? It is too big and looks terrible on the truck. But if you really like it doesn’t matter…….

 

Are you trying to say it will go through the cab?? Theres no chance of that. Break glass and dent the cab? Probably. Go through and hit the passengers? No way

 

Fixed

 

Time to get either a cab height bed rack or canopy and overhang the cab, or a roof rack and mount it up there overhanging the bed.

 

Mount an aux 3rd brake light on the tent case or on your tailgate, so drivers whose eye level is below your tent can see it, and reduce the likelihood of rear-ending you.

This isn't unique to your situation. Long bed models are affected the same way.

 

That is a bad idea.
Maybe if it is just for a one off trip ?

 

With others, seems dangerous. Get a taller bed rack, sell your current rack and move the tent over the cab.

 

That's exactly what Im suggesting. What's stopping it? From the pictures that tent looks just narrow enough to squeeze between the C pillars.

 

Goofball, yes, but what makes it "broverlanding" exactly? I mean..you have Method wheels on your truck. There's little (in my mind) that says "broverland" more than fake bead locks. Just a thought.

 

Highly doubt the RTT is that narrow. Also have to consider that bolts aren't going to instantly snap. Theres going to be a lot of force 'absorbed' by the bolts, rack, even the truck before total failure occurs

 

I'd risk decapitation and looking stupid once in awhile not to look stupid every day driving an aircraft carrier of a long bed.

 

It looks like half (or so) of the tent is cantilevered from the second support. I wouldn't do this to my truck. It's one thing to have a static load like that, but to have that same load overhanging that much while driving and getting subjected to loads of forces, is asking for trouble. It's not just the overhang of the tailgate that's an issue, its the amount of unsupported weight after the last support bar. This is a fail.

 

Buy a cab height bed rack, im sure you can sell the ones you have no problem. Personally, i couldnt leave it that way purely because it looks awful to me. I need SOME symmetry.

 

Thought I was in the parking thread
It’s not a good look I’d definitely get a shorter won’t look good on anything except maybe a camper with a full top rack system

 

Take that thing off your truck before someone gets hurt

 

I'll respectfully disagree on the second point. It really doesn't take much to either laterally shear a bolt or rip it out of the strut channel. I've broken a few similarly mounted things myself with just bodyweight and ignorance.

On the first point of whether the RTT will be stopped by the cab pillars? I honestly don't know. I could be right, or could be completely wrong on that. But in the gray fuzzy area of "meybbe it will or meybbe it won't," I personally prefer to err on rejecting that solution and finding one that is "most definitely won't, that ain't goin nowhere."

That's just me. Not my truck, and I'm not a passenger, so do as you will.

 

I'd go taller and put it out over the cab instead. NO WAY I'd ever ride around with it hanging like that as a daily thing.

As to it going through the cab in an accident scenario - could easily happen, especially if he's rear ended by a class 8 truck or RV. Also never assume it would be a straight hit pushing the tent through square. A hit to one side or the other at the rear could cause it to pivot and enter the cab corner first which would definitely allow it to contact passengers.