TRAILAIR vs 5th AIRBORNE 5th wheel hitch
 

Does anybody have a TRAILAIR or 5th AIRBORNE pin box on their fifth wheel camper? I am looking into getting one but would like some input.

I've got the TrailAir pinbox and suspension. Swapped the TrailAir in and removed a Demco Glide-ride pinbox. It made a world of difference in the ride in the truck and things quit walking around in the trailer too!

http://www.trailair.com/products/airpin/
http://www.trailair.com/products/equaflex/

Never towed without these since its my first 5er. I am truly amazed at how easy it is to tow such a huge rig.

2004 Mobile Suites 36CK3

I am new to 5th wheeler towing
I have a 285 Sierra about 4 ton, it come equipped with a trail air hitch
Up front is a 2005 6.0Lt PSD 4x4 Off Road Lariat with tow option, (Converted to RHD by Watkins here in New Zealand)
I have hauled horses all over NZ with a 78 F100 and at times lately with 1998 Explorer.
The F250 is an Ex Cab short bed so I got a sliding hitch fitted
I have only towed a 2,000 miles or so with this but it is unreal how it handles, then I am only comparing with towing a 2 ton trailer with a conventional hitch and 2-6 axle trailer behind a heavy truck
No jerk, bounce, or sway, hardly know you are towing.
With my limited experiance I would recommend

I have a KZ Escalade that a dealer installed a fifth airborne and was the most screwed up, unlevel pulling piece of crap I have ever been involved in. Then someone told me to call some guy named Sonny, that he was the magic man who could fix everything like the RV pulling level and not sitting on the truck like it was ready to launch with all the weight on the rear axle and all the bucking and bolting that the rv did to the truck. I tried to get this Sonny guy three times, and finally called the fifth airborne rep who would not even reply to my email. After all this BS and fiasco, I told the dealer to take the junk off my trailer and re-install the OEM pin box. I can't say anything about the trail air, but the fifth airborne is a piece of crap. I won't own a fifth airborne

I looked at the KZ before buying my Doubletree. Other than the airbourne, how do you like your rig?

:) I have had Cardinals with no problems at all with them. Over the years the floor plans changed and changed abnd changed and it appeared to me manufacturers were trying to jam more and more luxury items into each new floor plan that came out year after year. I do not state this with a negative attitude, just because I felt this is what was happening. I like wide open spaces. I like being able to walk into an RV and not have to side step something like an island, or a table, or a chair. Also I was not real impressed with the dark decor the RV were leaning toward. I felt like I was walking into a cave due to the dark decor. It seemed every Cardinal I wanted was dark and gloomy. I had been looking at the Escalade for about a year before I purchased my last Cardinal but did not like the dark cherry wood because I did not like the feeling of walking into a cave. All of the Escalades I looked at were dark cherry decor with dark furniture. I loved the floor plans due to the fact the floor plan "opened up" once you went inside but were dark and gloomy. Then I walked into the last one and the interior was equipped with the light maple finish and was wide open. I purchased the 36KSB after my last Cardinal purchase. I hadn't owned the last Cardinal but about 9 months. The unit is equipped with everything and is "loaded"
I would purhase another in a heart beat. The KZ factory people are awesume.

I have a 40' Cardinal 5th wheel and had a Trail Aire sliding pin box installed, (thats the one with the air bag, shock, AND the slider plate that moves back and forth several inches to soften the "push" when you brake. It's the best thing I could have done for my rig. The ride is amazingly smooth.

I have an Escalade Sportster 41CKS. It came with the 5th Airborne and I love it. Haven’t had any problems with it and it dampens the jolts like it’s supposed to. I haven’t had any other brands so I have nothing to compare it to. Bigdawgkp, could you elaborate on what was wrong with yours? It’s a pretty simple set up. Maybe they just didn't hook it up properly.

I own a production body /paint shop. We do the oem paint jobs for lots of rv manufacturers here in northern Indiana, KZ included. As a result, I have pulled thousands of kz's, carriage's, and other trailers to and fro our shop. The trail air is the smoothest in my opinion, Always liked that system. I have never had any complaints about the 5th airborne units, they just dont dampen the jerking as well as the trail air does. However, the 5th airborne is a big improvement over the solid pin box.

Trailair pin box
 

I have a Trailair T30 telescoping (i.e., adjustable height mount) air ride pin box (21,000 GVW tow rated), the kind with two shock absorbers. It works really well for me, but I do have a few comments:

1. The most scary thing was an easy fix. The pin box is hinged on a metal rod that is held in place by two bolts, one each end. The hinge consists of two pairs of vertical flanges (left and right side) extending down from a top plate (attached to the trailer) and a (left and right side) extending up from the bottom plate (attached to the truck). Each of the flanges has a hole in it, and the rod extends through all four holes, so that there are two hinge pairs, a left pair consisting of the left side flanges, and a right pair, consisting of the right side flanges. Remove that metal rod, and the bottom plate holding the king pin is physically disconnected from the upper plate . After a long day's ride, I was unhitching, and found that the left bolt had unscrewed itself, allowing the rod to work itself half way free, completely unpinning the left side hinge pair!! There are also some bronze bearings in there took, which were damaged when the rod started being unevenly loaded. After replacing the damaged bearings, and reassembling the hinge mechanism (the wayward bolt was still in the bed of my pickup), I drilled the bolt heads and safety wired them so the problem couldn't repeat. As I said, safety wiring is an easy fix/improvement, and one I'd suggest to anyone with this kind of hinge arrangement. My advice? Check whatever brand hitch you buy and see if it is similarly succeptable to a single point failure, and determine if safety wiring can be an easy fix. (Note, rather than drill into the pin box body itself to anchor safety wire, I epoxied a respective drilled L-shaped bracket to body next to each of the drilled bolt heads, and anchored the safety wire to the bracket.)

2. The pin box is too wide to fit through the "V" in my Husky Fifth Wheel Tailgate (which is only 1 ft 3" wide at the bottom). So I have to raise the 5th wheel a few inches before it will fit through. So usually, I just fold down the tailgate, which means there was no need to use a 5th wheel tailgate on the truck (other than the louvers may help fuel economy when the tail gate is up...). Something to consider when buying either a pin box or fifth-wheel tailgate for your truck.

3. The paint job on my pin box needs to be touched up every year. I don't know why, but it seems to scratch and rust easily. Not hard to do, and Rustoleum glossy black paint over red primer works perfectly.

4. The bottom plate of my pin box has a low point surrounded by upward extending flanges at front and sides, that collected standing water when rained on (not good in light of #3 above). I called factory, and got approval to drill a pair of 3/8" drain holes in the corners. Problem solved.