So those are younger men's hitches. LOL!

 

LOL.......I wish I was young. 64 is starting to feel pretty old.

 

Hi guys. I have the same question that Tugboatguy had to start the thread. We just took delivery, yesterday, of a new Rockwood 5vr. It comes with a Lippert Turning Point hitch, which is kind of distressing as it was supposed to have a Reese Revolution... but the factory made one of those changes, that they don't talk about, between model years. Anyway, TV will be an F350 with the Ford puck system. It will be the short bed, which is why I was planning to make use of the rotating pinbox.

Army, I have seen your other comments in other threads on the Anderson (been lurking for a while!). It looks good... except for my shortbed truck and forgetful nature. I've been looking at hitches, and I had come to the conclusion that a B&W Companion would be the way to go. This is the model that four-point mounts to the Ford pucks, not the one that mounts to a gooseneck ball. It costs around $1000 and I think weighs in around 150 lbs, which is not bad.

So, for you guys that are using the Anderson or non-sliders, how many of you, if any, have shortbed trucks? Or do you have rounded front caps on your trailers? Or do you have a Sidewinder or Revolution? I should mention that we have a fairly square front end compared to some. I have been wondering how everybody else does it with shortbeds.


Woohoo! New fifth wheel! Next step... order the F350.

 

There are too many unknowns for me to recommend what's best for your situation. Some 5ths have a long pin box (provides more clearance), some have short ones, while some others pivot.
Also some 5ths have scalloped front ends while others don't. Long story short: you may find fixed hitches would be fine with your truck/ pin box combination - or they may not.

But if you determine it won't work then your choices are not limited to just a slider hitch, you can swap out the pin box for one more suitable (longer) for your combination, OR you can use the AUH; the Anderson coupler (that attaches to your 5th) can be mounted in either of two positions, depending on truck bed length. I believe it allows an additional 8-9 inches.

Final thoughts: several trucks back I had a short bed with a manual slider hitch. I found it easier to be careful in making sharp turns vs operating the slide (both ways). YMMV

 

Yeah. Everybody is a little different. I wasn't so much looking for a recommendation as just curious as to what everyone else decided was their best solution. In my case, as you can (kind of) see from the pic, there is no relief on the front of our fifth wheel. It's only a 34, so I guess they didn't want to lose any space in the nose by cropping the corners. The closet is pretty small.

Once I get the truck, I can measure and see what I really have to work with and then compare that to the trailer and the supplied pinbox. I hope, though, that with the F350 6'9" bed I will be ok with the rotating pinbox. I had not thought about a longer pinbox to move the trailer body further back, but as an engineer I would cringe at doing anything that added component stress to the factory configuration. Especially since, as we know, the RV industry is not exactly a paragon of good design and manufacturing. Having said that, the Rockwood looked to be well finished and everything was tight and square insides. Could not do much outside - that will be next spring when we bring it home. But it does look good and we wish we could take it out now!

I've seen that the Anderson can mount two ways, but until I get the truck and trailer measurements all together IDK if that's enough. I see you have a longbed… dually! Awesome. I have a garage that would be just a little too tight, plus dealing with the extra length when the trailer isn't attached. And, only SRW at this time so I don't want to lose additional load capacity. Although, that big gas tank in the longbed would be nice!

I did look at the manual sliders. If the trailer didn't already come with the Turning Point, I would certainly have gotten some kind of slider. But, since it does, I'll start out with the rotating pinbox and see how I like that.

I did forget to ask in my previous post... for you guys that are using a Revolution or equivalent with your truck, anybody have a Fifth Airborne or similar? And does it make any difference? The idea seems great, but does it actually make any noticeable difference in towing?

 

 

I have a 5th Airborne Sidewinder on my Cougar X-lite because I pulled it with my F150 shortbed. I worked perfect. The truck hardly even noticed it and it felt good. I am getting a F350 this week and we are upgrading our 5th wheel too this spring. I am getting either an AHU or an auto slider hitch for the new truck. The new 5th wheel will have a Mor-Ryde on it already. SkiSmuggs and I had almost the exact setup. The rails, hitch and 5th airborne Sidewinder are all for sale too!

 

 

True. But they make a version that connects to the pucks which should be fine for the swivels.

 

 

Ah. Yup. When I first started looking for a hitch, I saw that. Took me a while to figure out that they made 5vr hitches that had the single point connect to a gooseball. I wish I could use that, it would be easy which I suppose is why they make them! But yeah, not very practical when the hitch is locked with the wedge.

So you have a hitch that connects to the Ford pucks? How do those work.. is it threaded and you bolt it in, or a pin that goes through a slotted hole in the puck and you turn to lock it in place, or what? Since I don't have the hitch or the truck yet, I still don't quite get that!

 

The hitches attach via a quarter-turn fastener. Drop the hitch into the pucks, give all 4 levers a quarter turn & then lock via whatever safety mechanism each manufacturer uses to prevent unlocking.

 

I have a Jayco Eagle HT 26.5 BHS paired with my 2015 F250 CCSB. I had the Ford puck system installed after the fact and purchased a Reese Elite 18K fixed hitch to go into the pucks and a Reese Sidewinder pinbox to replace the stock Lippert unit. I really like the Sidewinder for a couple of reasons. First, there is no worry about hitting the cab with the nose of the trailer, going forward or backward. Second, since the pin box doesn't rotate around the hitch, it leaves me lots more usable space in the bed. The fixed Reese hitch is definitely heavy, and although it does separate into two pieces, I usually remove it as a single piece. The puck system is very nice for leaving a flat and usable bed when the hitch is removed. I haven't had any issues with chucking, but I understand that is heavily dependent on the truck/trailer combination and the roads being traveled. Hopefully you will find something that works well for you.