TorkLift Locking FastGun Turnbuckles Review
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Review of the TorkLift Locking FastGun Turnbuckles
Today, specifically, we're going to be looking at part number TLS9529-2-LK. Here's what our FastGuns are going to look like installed. Now these are an excellent, excellent solution for the old chain with the turnbuckle style setups that we're all used to, with in-bed truck campers. This all in one unit is going to have a hook at either end to help attach to either your existing connection point on your vehicle, or in our case, we've got the torque lift frame mounted tie-downs that we're using. These are really good, easy to come on and off. But this is going to offer complete stainless steel construction, even though this is black, this has a black powder coat finish over the stainless steel.
So we should have years and years of great service out of it. Not only does it look good, not only does it last a long time, inside of each of the FastGuns, we've got the spring mechanism already in place so we don't have to have additional springs. This is going to take some of that excess stress off of our upper connection point here where it meets with our camper, that typically seems to be the weak point of campers with the tie-downs. So this is going to give us a little bit of spring action in there to help reduce some of that stress. Now, the big thing about it and how quickly they go on and come off. Ours has a lock up here at the top which is provided.
Some are going to have a little lock, some are just going to have the simple pin with the bail that comes around it. Either way they'll be nice and secure. If yours doesn't come with the lock and you do want it, we do have these available on our website, you can pick them up. Once that's off, all we have to really do is raise up our lever, unhook it at the bottom, unhook it at the top, throw it in our camper, it's stored, we could do that on all four corners. Then soon as we get it back in the truck and we're ready to head back down the road, we're just going to bring that up, make that connection at the bottom, pull that down. You'll see there's a nice gap in there so you don't have to worry about getting your hand out of the way or smashing your fingers or anything.
Really clean look, easy to use. Now you just want to lock it back up. These are really, really neat, really well constructed and it's something that a lot of people want, so having a lock there I think is a good feature. Slide that back on. Long as you do that on all four corners, we're ready to head down the road.
Really simple, straightforward process. Now this particular length that you see here, this is going to be the 25 to 43 inch, it's going to be from hook to hook. They also have these in a 14 up to a 21 1/2 if your length that you need to cover there is a little bit shorter. Now, traditionally tying down an in-bed truck camper, it's kind of a pain. You've got the standard kind of turnbuckle, you have to spin the middle to get it to close together. In this case, the customer's just used the safety chain off of a trailer, attached it to his rig and then the turnbuckle just comes down. Trying to get it attached is some kind of pain. Then once we do have it attached, we're going to need tools. There's just no safe way to to do this and get everything locked out without them. So we'll put some tension into it. It's all about tensioning that down and getting that tight and bringing this together. Now, that's the old-school way, that's the way it used to work. Used to go down the road like this without any problem. The issues we're when you wanted to take it off or put it on, always had to have tools with you. If you're out in the winter time these got froze up or something, it was just kind of a pain. We'll get these off and we'll show you the new TorkLift FastGuns, really makes loading and unloading these things, or at least getting them tied down or getting undone, very, very simple. Get rid of our old safety chain here, however it might be connected, or tie-down chain, it's a safety chain, that's what I called it. Get it connected. I'm going to keep the caribiner or the quick connect here, that's a great way to connect the FastGuns, allows a little bit more flexibility there. I'm just going to have this closed off. This is what one FastGun assembly is going to look like, really simple setup process here. We want to grab our 1/2 inch threaded rod, going to slide that right up inside of the assembly itself. We'll see the threads come out here at the end of it. Take our square nut with the rounded portion facing out or away from the threaded rod and then we're just going to turn our hook, you thread that on through. We're then going to take the flat rubber bushing and we need to slide that down and on. If you hold it and spin that rod it will just help move it in there a little bit further for you. Just going to thread that down on. Then we need to take our nylon lock nut and thread that on the end. Now you won't really be able to get a wrench in there to tighten it, it's not a big deal. What we're going to do is just push it all the way up till it stops, close our handle down a little bit and you'll see that'll actually hold the nut for us while we spin our hook end to where we'll have threads coming all the way through our lock nut. The only thing we're using that for is just to prevent us from unthreading this too far when we're making our adjustments. But the basic mechanics are setup now here. We've got an o-ring that's going to go on the bottom. Slide that right on the bolt, slide it right down. We're going to keep it a little ways from the end of the FastGun. We're going to make our initial setup here in just a second. From the top side right in here, got a nice square plug that's going to go in there and seal that opening up, helping to keep out any moisture, dirt or debris. Between the construction of these and the plug here at the end and the o-ring at the other side, really makes these last a good long time for us. We can take the provided quick connect here. We'll attach it to the connection point down here lower. In this case these are TorkLift frame mounted tie-downs. These FastGuns work really, really well with these. These are a great way to secure your camper in the bed of your vehicle there. Just want to get it connected and check for length. Have to go in a little bit on it. By turning the rod here, this is what gives us our adjustment. You've got two sizes available. We've got one that goes anywhere from 14 up to 21 1/2 inches and then we've got one that's going to go anywhere from 25 up to 43 inches. Really makes it nice. One-time adjustments are really all you're doing here. This is just your initial setup and after that, pull it out, put it on, click it in and hit the road. Right, now with it set to the appropriate length, we're just going to make our top connection, make our bottom connection. Now, as we pull our handle down it's going to cinch everything together and you'll actually feel the spring that's located inside of the shaft here, kind of compress slightly. See, that's nice and secure, way quicker than our safety chains would have been. We get ready to release them, we just pull up the handle, unhook them, set them aside, unlock our camper and then it's just the opposite. Click in the top, click in the bottom, pull down our handle. Now they send a bail pin with some of the FastGuns, with other FastGuns you're going to have locks that will go in there. So, you just want to use that right through that hole there and secure it. Just to give you an idea, this is what the bail clip looks like, that's going to slide through like that, come over and secure it with the handle. Won't have to worry about it releasing. The other option that you may have is the actual lock. Just take that off, pass it through, back on, lock it up. That way not only can we keep the lever down and secure, but we can keep these on our vehicle, we won't have to worry about them disappearing. We just have to head around, get all four corners secure, we can hit the road. That's going to complete our look at the TorkLift line of locking FastGun turnbuckles for frame-mounted tie-downs. .
Info for these parts were:
Video Edited:
Jacob T
Installed by:
Cole B
Installed by:
David F
Video by:
Chris R
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