Interesting, I have not had that experience and my swing arm is always open when I open and close the tent. I would think that, if anything, it would just tilt the entire truck.
Thatās good its working for yours. I had the CBI single arm swing arm and ultimately ended up taking off the swing arm part because I didnāt want it to ruin the GFC
Can you expand a bit more on this please? I have the CBI dual swing. Itās bolted to my frame and have never noticed it affecting my camper.
Iām sure they can answer better, but it sounds like the heavy swingarm is causing extra truck bed flex, which in turn causes some flex in the GFC tent (misaligning top and bottom half), which eventually overstresses the strut mount(s).
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Exactly what @Vice_Chief said. I had the single swing arm which I think made it worse (35 spare and 3 gallons of fuel, sometimes a bike rack). Since the Tacoma frame is a C channel it twist more under load. You could box in the frame and that may help, but I didnāt feel like doing that.
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Do these hood stays ruin the piston? It looks like the bolt will score the internal rod. When I have a roof box on, its a little too much for my stock struts, but after reading here, it looks like the heavy duty, higher weight struts are a bad idea. We made the sleeves out of PEX, but they are a PITA to get on and off.
I just ordered these 150# struts. I have a bit heavy solar array on top. When the weather is warm there doesnāt seem to be an issue with the standard struts. But I just used the tent on a colder morning and it did not go up very easy. I had to get inside and push the tent the rest of the way up. It stayed up for the day, but it got me thinking this might be an issue sooner than I thought. So Iām putting the 150#ās on now before I have to start propping it up. Iāll add info if I come across anything interesting in the process to report. Wish me luck.
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I tried to search some but my ADD brain had no luck.
I am upgrading to 150# struts. Does anyone have advice on switching out the struts on the tent? Should I open the tent all the way or just a bit. I saw talk about using ratchet straps to help compress them. The ones I got are already compressed with cut away straps. Any real world guidance would be greatly appreciated.
If your struts are already compressed, I would put the tent up, prop up the tent from inside with a 2x4, and remove the old struts. The struts are compressed, so they are probably short. Attach the top joint first. Then have a helper inside the tent lower it enough for you to attach the bottom joint. I just changed out a strut this weekend using the ratchet method. That was a challenge because the strap tends to slide off if itās not just right. And believe me, when the strut is compressed and you cut that strap, that sucker has a lot of force. So you want to attach it before cutting the strap.
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So, upgraded one strut and sure enough the ball mount snapped after three pulls. I have build 1635 so thereās some age and wear on the mount for sure. So I am going to go this route.
Just some input on this upgrade for any others considering. I am aware that others have had no issue at all but I can all but certainly attribute this to age and use. FWIW.