Been pulling the same 40 ft. fifth wheel for well over 50,000 miles, most with my 2008 lemon 6.4. Now I got a real truck and love it. I have pulled for over 10,000 miles with my new truck. When I got back from my last trip to Key West, I was unhooking my fifth wheel and was shocked to see my bed of my truck my bent right on the top of the rails about 30 inches back from the cab. At first I thought maybe the fifth wheel hit it but no marks on it and the dents were to far forward? Took it to the RV dealer and he said he had no idea. Anyone else had this happen? Thanks

 

Can you post a picture?

 

Subscribing...you maybe angled it to the extreme and the 5er did it?

 

It should be easy to hook up and crank over in a tight turn. See if the marks on the cab match up where the trailer would impact.

 

My first thoughts are that you should be able to align the marks on the bed rails with the 5er and see if something presents itself as being obvious. ie; turn the truck and trailer in such a fashion as to align the marks up and see if it was possible to contact one another.

I watched two guys talking one day in an RV Park. It was obvious one of them was breaking down camp and the other one was strolling along and struck up a conversation. Well, in so doing, innocent as it would appear, the guy breaking camp got distracted, and forgot where he left off in his rig down process. Unfortunately, it was when he was hooking the 5er to the truck. He forgot to confirm that the latch on the fifth wheel plate actually latched. Well, they stood thee talking for some time and finally the one guy walks away and the departing guy jumps in his rig and starts to drive away. WHAM! There was this godawful sound of something dropping. I turn around in time to see the 5er hit the bed of the tow vehicle. It was a trailer toter. Not a pickup box. The bed was a flat bed. But the 5er still fell about 18 inches right onto the flat bed. Man my heart fell into my stomach as I observed this tragedy unfold. I can't imagine how the other two guys felt.

I'm not assuming you did something wrong or out of the norm for how you do things. Simply relating a story of an avoidable mishap. Saying that to say this: As polite as it may seem to offer help when someone is tearring down or setting up, it usually takes us out of our routine that each and every one of us has established. I do this, wife does that, I do this, wife takes a nap! WHOOPS! Don't tell her I put that part in there. LOL

Also, there are some spaces that are very difficult to get into. Forward or backward. The angle of the dangle has to match the height of the thingybob or you just might find your whatchamacallit coming in contact with the sonofa! DOOH! Backing uphill, going thru too deep of a ditch. I don't know. I wish I would have been there with you tho. I would watch out for ya, bro.

Hopefully, you figure out what happened to your truck and/or 5er.

 

Sorry about the damage, but IMO this really has nothing to do with the truck or motor/engine, it has to do with operator error (apparently not caused by you). If the side rails are damaged, someone did something that made that happen.

 

This is excellent advice. It happens all to frequently. Always (!!) do a pull test before completely raising your landing gear. And, always open your tailgate when hitching and unhitching. Don't ask me how I know.

 

Hard to understand what or how this happened without pictures.

 

Likely the 5'er hitch is set too low and there's insufficient clearance between the trailer and bed rails. The bed rails were likely "kissed" when entering/leaving a driveway when the truck and trailer were on surfaces with differing angles, particularly if there are any potholes in the driveway.

 

I've had a "KISS" to the top of the bed rails once. I never went back to that campground again. And I was always paranoid I could hit the top of the bed rails again. I never forgot the possibility of this happening, I only had about 5" of clearance on my 04 FX4 shortbed and the bottom of the 5er. I no longer have the possibility of it ever happening again, however. See my 11 in my sig.

Jim

 

The appearance if the damage being too far forward from the edge of your 5th'er is because when the truck is on an incline and the trailer is still flat, it acts as a fulcrum. Take a string, tape it on yor bed rail even with your hitch/receiver. Run it out to the damaged area. Now pivot that up towards the edge of the trailer. You'll most likely meet right on the edge of the trailer. Make sure to tape it off good cause pull want to put some tension on it as you rotate the string up.