If one has a short bed late model Dodge 1500 and a light weight 5th wheel (2003 Komfort 22FS) with an extended pin box, does one still need a slider hitch, or will a regular hitch work? The previous owner of the Komfort used a regular hitch in his short bed Chevy 1500 and had no issues. Was wondering.
Your call. Not a whole lot of price difference between the two. I have a 06 Dodge short bed and have a Reese slider. Even if I only use it a couple of times(and I already have), it is worth the couple hundred bucks to greatly reduce the chance I will get into a situation where I damage the truck or trailer.
prolly not, watch yourself in tight turns. Most of the time I get by without activating the slider, due to shear laziness. However, I have been in spots that I would have damaged truck or trailer without the slider simply because of my own stubbornness. Is it worth the extra $$, for my application.
It depends on what price you put on piece of mind. I have a short box and an extended pin, and I use mine all the time. For my money, it’s cheap insurance, as is a BedSaver.
No, you don't need the slider unless you want to make tight turns. I have a slider and thoutht that I could make the turn. When the fiver was within two inches of the cab I saw that I could not make the turn. I needed to back up a little. It was too late. The fiver wheels were crossed from the tight turn and when I started to back up they straightened up making the fiver jump against my truck cab. That cost 800 dollars to fix. Now I don't any closer than six inches. I use the slider more than I did at first. Your call: Pay me now or pay me later, in most cases.
Jesse & Karen Norris with Kirby our chow-chow
2005 HitchHiker II LS 29.5 LKTG
2005 Dodge Ram 2500 Turbo Diesel
Martinez, Georgia
Any time the distance from the King Pin to the cab is less than 1/2 the width of the trailer, the trailer WILL HIT the cab in a 90° jack-knife turn. The math is not difficult.
I won't refute clenger's math, However, I am not sure of being able to maintqin a 90 degree jack back on a camper. First of all the tires may pull off the rims or the sidewalls will be weakened. Second, my trailers have cracked amd popped in the suspension at about the 45 degree mark.
Does anybody's pick up cut short enough to keep up with the trailer if you go to extreme angles? Mine won't. and there is nothig wrong with the steering.
And I bet I will not hsave to pay you later from driving my short box with extended pin box.
Any time the distance from the King Pin to the cab is less than 1/2 the width of the trailer, the trailer WILL HIT the cab in a 90° jack-knife turn. The math is not difficult.
Actually, the math is a bit more complicated than that. A given 5th wheel WILL come in contact with the truck, regardless of where the hitch is, at a certain angle. I would consider a 90 degree turn likely the absolute maximum that can be achieved, and in practice, not likely. Assume the center of the hitch pin is directly under the edge of the front cap, and that the front cap edge is straight across the width. As long as the trailer width is less than twice the distance from the pin center to the truck cab, you can achieve 90 degrees. If it is more than twice this distance, then you'll need more info to figure out at what angle you'll hit:
Angle = arctan(2d/c), where d is hitch to cab distance, and c is the truck cab width. This is for the case where the width of the trailer is wider than:
w > 2*sqrt(d^2 + c^2/4), where w is the width of the trailer.
if w is less than the formula above, you can go up to:
Angle = arcsine(2d/w)
This is a bit simplified and makes use of simple trigonometry. Now add in the extended pin box length, and my head starts to hurt! You no longer have a simple triangle to work with, so it's harder to figure out the angles involved.
In any case, I see that an extended pin box will buy you some amount of extra degrees in turning, but you would still not be able to do a 90 degree turn if the trailer width is twice the hitch to cab distance. The slider hitch increases this distance, which helps out more than the just extending the pin box.
Hmmm - I may have answered my own question...
-steve
* This post was
edited 05/28/08 03:55pm by Murgatroid *
This weekend I say a short bed dodge truck and a 5er (too large for the truck) with the extended pin box and it had a mashed in corner on the drivers side of the cab, rear corner. There was a corresponding boo-boo on the trailer.
So even with an extended pin box...you will still hit the cab. That is why I also use a long bed (REAL) truck.
Ken
KE5DFR
Vintage 1979 Silver Streak Supreme Rocket toted by a 2002 F350, crewcab dually, 7.3L,4.10 axle,SCMT. Travel with two miniature Schnauzers and one African Gray parrot. Practicing for retirement!
We have an extended pin box and still use the slider most of the time. We can turn pretty sharp without hitting the cab, but I don't want to worry about that when trying to back in to a tight spot.
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