Hold On

RVers love to bring “stuff” along on any trip. Ask most owners and they will insist that the items packed in the storage compartments and tow vehicle are pure necessities. I won’t argue that point, but keeping many of these bulky items from becoming disheveled can sometimes be a challenge. Case in point: The telescoping ladder, folding table and patio mat that are stored between the fifth wheel hitch and tailgate in the bed of my Ram dually truck. I learned the hard way that if these items were not secured, the patio mat would become an ornament on the highway while the other two items scooted freely within the truck bed. Consequently, ratchet straps were used to keep things secure, but they were a pain to use and did not attach properly at opposite ends.

Then I ran across retractable ratchet straps, installed a tie down loop on each side of the bed — and the process not only became easier, but the items in the bed no longer moved while on the road.

The key is the retract feature, which allows the strap to wind up smoothly by pushing a button. Non-retractable straps require threading through the ratcheting mechanism (which many people get wrong and end up having to untangle a jammed strap), plus, you have to deal with the leftover strap after tightening. With the retractable feature, the strap can be easily extended and tightened, leaving no extra strap to dangle in the wind. While there are quite a few retractable ratchet straps on the market, I settled on the Rhino USA 2-inch by 10-foot Retractable Ratchet Straps (2-pack) for $59.90 on Amazon.

I quickly realized that to make the straps most effective (based on the particular items stored in the bed), the factory tie-downs would be too far back to offer the best alignment for the strap. Therefore, I elected to mount D-ring anchors on each side of the bed. After scouring the Internet, I purchased “Pamazy Heavy Duty Steel D Ring Tie Down Anchors” on Amazon for $18.99 (pack of six). These anchors have a 3,500-pound breaking strength — which obviously was overkill and well beyond the capability of the sheet metal in the bed — but they looked good. Included with the kit were sheet metal screws and nuts/bolts for mounting the plate to the sidewall of the bed. Rather than use the provided bolts, I bought ¼-inch x 20, 1-inch stainless-steel bolts with washers and lock nuts, which provided a solid foundation and would work better in a wet environment.

The anchors were placed in the center point of the telescoping ladder, which pretty much allowed the strap to run right down the middle of all the stacked items. Once it was determined that there were no obstructions on the other side of the bed and it was possible to reach the area to tighten the nuts, the holes were drilled, one at a time, inserting the bolts consecutively to make sure the plate would line up properly. It took two people to tighten the nuts; total time to complete the project was less than an hour.

Positioning the strap is now quick without having to stretch uncomfortably to reach the hooks. The business end of the ratcheting strap is connected to one D-ring and the other end pulled out and hooked to the provided extension strap looped through the other D-ring. From there, the slack is taken up by moving the ratchet lever up and down. That’s it — you’re done.