I just bought an '03 F350 and the guy that had it before me had a gooseneck hitch in it but he had made a plate (that the gooseneck ball was welded to) that would allow it to be mounted to the four factory bed mounting holes instead of drilling holes in the bed and frame.

I was wondering if anyone else has done this before and if you had any pics you could share with me?

I really don't want to drill any holes in the frame either so I was looking at using these four bolt holes to mount my 15k Reese 5th hitch to. The front to back measurement is perfect (20") but the side to side measurement is off some (my hitch has holes at 34", the truck holes are 35") so I will have to drill new holes in my hitch mounting plates.
I can see that the factory has a spacer made under the bed mount at each of these four points and since I'll only be using these four holes, I was thinking about welding two 1/4"x2"x18" "strips" between the front and rear mounting rails to tie them together better and to keep the rails from trying to flex or rock back and forth since they'll only have the bolts in the center of each rail instead of the two carriage bolts on the outer edges. (Hope that made sense).

I'm just curious if anyone else has done anything similar and what kind of luck you had with it?

Thanks for any help!

 

I don't think that's such a great idea. I would go straight to the frame and forget about mounting it to the bed.

Mounting on the bed mount bolts atop the bed floor, you're depending on the thickness of the sheetmetal channels running accross the bed under the floor to hold up the whole hitch weight of the trailer. You're also depending on sheetmetal to not de-form under the weight and pull stress, which would cause the bolts to come loose over time and increase the likelyhood of them bending and shearing off.

If your truckbed was a commercial flatbed or such that was made with thick structural steel, that would be one thing. However, your pickup bed is made of cheap flimsy sheetmetal that is not designed for what you are proposing to do with it. I would go straight to the Frame.

What's the big deal with drilling the holes in the frame? I had to drill holes in my frame to mount my rear reciever hitch. It's not a big deal. Any desecent drill with a 1/2" chuck and a good 1/2" drill bit can do the job easily with a little patience on your part. Drill slow and use some cutting oil so you don't waste the drill bit on the first hole and then have a miserable time drilling the rest of them.

Thousands of people mount fifth wheel hitches to their truck frames and have no problems mounting them that way. I would go straight to the frame.

 

I don't have a problem with drilling holes in my frame.....I don't want to drill holes in a perfectly good bed. I have two other one ton trucks (a '99 F350 and a '96 Chevy 3500) and I mounted 5th wheel hitches in the bed of both of them using the angle brackets bolted down the frame and under the bed. Now that I'm trying to sell both of these trucks, several potential buyers have commented that they didn't like the fact that there were eight 5/8" holes drilled in the bed of the truck. Not everyone buys one ton trucks to haul 5th wheel or gooseneck trailers with.

The guy that had this truck before me took the time to have a 1/4" steel plate made to fit these four factory mounting points to haul his gooseneck horse trailer with. I don't know how much his trailer weighed but I know that it was a horse trailer with full living quarters up front. It must weigh as much as my 8000lb 5th wheel camper.

Between the bed and the frame of the truck there are factory steel spacers at those four mounting hole positions inside the factory channel. I didn't notice these spacers on my '99 F350. I was curious how strong these spacers are and if they may have been put in by Ford specifically for this purpose? It's seems to be a strange coincidence that these four mounting holes are spaced exactly the same as a Reese 5th rails need to be.

 

I mounted my 5ver hitch (not a ball hitch) with 4 of the box bolts but I also drilled through the box and mounted brackets to the frame in 4 places, remember that you should only drill in the side of the frame and not into the top flange.

When I used the 4 box bolts I had to drill new holes in the hitch rails so the bolts will fit and go straight in, I have a 20K Reese hitch but the spacing and the rails are the same. I have pulled 30K plus miles with it mounted this way with no problems and all the bolts have stayed tight. When I measured my hitch using the box bolts on the front of the rails put the hitch 2.5" in front of the axle, them I drilled bolts for the back of each rail in 2 places to the frame.

Denny

 

The best recommendation is to mount the hitch in accordance with the manufacturers written instructions. None of the fifth wheel hitch manufacturers approve using the bed bolts as a method of mounting the hitch. They spend a lot of money in the designing and testing of approved methods for mounting their hitches. This is done by well educated, high paid mechanical engineers. When you decide to mount your hitch in a different fashion then you become the engineer. Are you qualified for this role and are you willing to take the FULL responsiblilty for the outcome of any issues involving your design?

Gooseneck hitches are different, the ball is only about 6" tall above the bed. Take a look at the 5th wheel hitch and note how high the hitch point is, usually a foot or more above the bed. This height of the 5th wheel hitch imparts more fore and aft twisting load on the mounting bolts than for a gooseneck hitch. That's also the reason that a gooseneck hitch can be rated higher than a 5th wheel hitch.

In practice you may very well have no problems with mounting your hitch this way and towing your trailer many miles.
BUT, keep in mind as you go blissfully down the road that if you hit something with your truck that your nonstandard method of hitch installation is more likely to fail and your trailer will probably come through the back of the cab, with the hitch still attached to it.
Wouldn't it be better to think that the trailer smashing you and your family to your deaths wasn't because you didn't want to drill holes in the bed to mount the hitch properly?

Here's a little test for you...pose the above situation to your family and ask them which they would prefer.

I wanted to use a gooseneck adapter on my Newmar but my SO asked me why an adapter needs chains and the 5th wheel doesn't. When I explained that a 5th wheel is a positive lock hitch and the goose isn't then she doesn't want anything to do with the adapter.

When I bought my present truck my cousin installed the hitch for me at his shop. He toyed with using the bed bolts also but I put a stop to that idea. It was tempting but I told him the hitch was designed to be mounted through the bed to the frame using the bots and brackets supplied. Using the bed bolts as a shortcut was only undermining the integrity of the entire hitch system. He agreed.

Do yourself a big favor and mount the hitch properly...it will give you peace of mind.
(And yes I've seen the Ford commercial about the bed bolts.)

 

001-F DORF
When I went to mount my hitch in my truck I removed one of the box bolts and looked it over very close, its one hell of a bolt and the thread was long enough to fully engage after going through the hitch rail. I still used 4 of the Reese brackets plus the box bolts but I think that the Reese mounting brackets will fail before the box bolts will. M2C

I also would not use just the box bolts, break down and drill the holes.


Denny

 

rvpuller,
It's good that you used the brackets and bolts but I have to wonder why you felt that you needed to use the bed bolts also. My comments aren't aimed in your direction but they are meant solely for those who want to use only the bed bolts and nothing else.
Keep in mind that this means only 4 bolts are being used in a system designed for 8 bolts. Is one bed bolt twice as strong as 2 grade 8 rail bolts? I doubt it and I certainly wouldn't want the liability of doing it that way.
Eyeballing the bolts would not qualify as a test for the tensile and shear strength of them. The bolts used in the rails are grade 8 and in the hitch that I just installed for a friend the frame bolts were 1/2" wheel lug studs, also grade 8. The weakest part of the installation is the bolts, not the rails.

All my 5th wheel hitches were installed by welded the brackets to the frame. I buy new brackets when I change trucks, Ford trucks. Welding is an approved method of installation per the hitch manufacturer.

As far as trying to sell a truck with bolt holes in the bed...that's pretty lame for a buyer to balk at. Take the proper size stove bolts and install them in the bed holes with nuts underneath...no more holes, just the rounded bolt heads. Most people will have no idea that the bolts are just there to fill the holes, especially if you touch them up to match the bed paint, don't tell them otherwise.

Thanks for the reply.
Ron

 

Well, I was basically just trying to find out if maybe Ford had intended for those four particular existing bolt holes to be used for mounting a hitch. I didn't know I was going to be preached to about how I was jeopardizing my family's lives.

I'm not an idiot. Actually, I'm a degreed Communications Engineer and a former ASE certified diesel mechanic, so I understand the limitations involved. I just thought it was odd that these four holes happen to be at the same locations as the Reese mounting plates. I know that there are others out there only using the four existing holes. I've read about them on different forums including this one but I was trying to find out if that's what the holes and spacers were designed for. I thought that maybe Ford may have built it in that location and used those spacers on purpose to accomodate a hitch.

Apparently that is not the case so I guess I'll drill the holes in the bed after all.

I was just noticing on Reese's website that they offer custom made inexpensive brackets for the F350 that only requires drilling one hole in the frame instead of using the four universal L brackets. I may order those.

I think you would be surprised at how much of a difference those holes in the bed depreciate the value of the truck. I tried to trade both of these trucks in on an '05 recently and was told that those scare people off because they're afraid that the previous owner may have used the truck commercially and/or overloaded it with a heavy 5th wheel or gooseneck trailer (both of my older trucks also have gooseneck holes in the bed). Installing bolts in those holes is a good idea to cover them up though and I'll probably do that.

By the way, the 8 carriage bolts that Reese supplied with my 15k hitch are grade 5 not grade 8.

 

I just ran across the website below of a company that makes gooseneck and 5th wheel hitches for Ford trucks that specifically use the bed mounting bolts. They actually state that on some Ford trucks that there may only be 3 bolts down each side instead of 4 so you're just supposed to leave the center bolt out completely.

Check it out:

http://www.bolthitch.com/Bolt%20Hitch%20Home%20Page.htm

 

dragula

After looking at the carriage bolts (grade 5) that Reese uses thats when it decided to use the the grade 8 bolts that hold on the box, like I said its on hell of a bolt. The main reason I used the Reese bolts on the back of the rails is to stop them from rocking forward when the trailer is pushing on the hitch and to help with the 3200 lbs of pin weight my 5ver puts on the truck.

Denny

 

Denny,
When I removed that big steel plate that was in my truck when I bought it Friday, I noticed that the guy had replaced the factory Ford bolts (which were Torx head) with standard grade 5 bolts which I didn't think was a very bright move. There's no telling what he paid to have that plate/gooseneck hitch made and then he only used $5 worth of bolts to hold it together.

 

The guy probably didn't think that he could get the Torx head bolts tight enough, what he probable didn't realize is that the Torx driver will break before you can over tighten the bolts. To tight is not good thing when it comes to bolts under high shear load.

I looked at the hitch mounting on that web sight, I think it will stay in the box. The only thing I don't like about that style of 5ver hitch that goes over the ball is the strain it puts on the ball mounting. But I don't think that the rails will come lose.

I have run across guys that welded there Reese Hitch rails to a metal plate and them use the box bolts through the plate. That would distribute the weight over more of the box and stop the rails from moving.

Denny

 

I looked at the website for the bolt hitch and it is not what you explained that you wanted to do in the begining. In fact it's a far cry from it.
The bolts that came with my hitch were 8's as were the ones I just used to install my friends hitch.
Hey it's your truck, if you want to design your own hitch mounting then do it. Of course you could always contact the manufacturer of your hitch and see what they have to say. I can bet that it won't be what you want to hear though.
Good luck.