Be prepared to get back on the road

That hex bolt at the center of the photograph has been a real nuisance for me. The photo was taken inside the front compartment of my fiver. The square tube that the bolt passes through connects the drive shaft of the landing gear motor (the round part) to the gear box of the curb-side landing gear. The torque applied by the motor has sheared off the bolt now about 3 times. You're stuck when that happens: you can't hitch or unhitch. It took me a while to figure out what was needed and how to fix it the first time it happened. Now I carry extra bolts and nuts so I'm only delayed about 10 minutes if it happens again.

On my most recent trip it happened in the parking lot of the casino where I stopped for the night. No big deal. But then as I prepared to leave, I couldn't pull in the slideout. On my trailer exactly the same mechanism is used to drive the forward slide gear and yes, that bolt was sheared too. I fixed it only to discover that the bolt at the opposite end of the square tube had come loose with all the jiggering while I was fixing the first one. Well, I was an hour later than I intended getting underway. But having those bolts and a toolbox on hand meant that I wasn't stuck waiting for service. — Jerry Brown

A shattering turn of events

We've talked about sliding hitches for short bed tucks here in recent posts. Watch this video to see why they are necessary. - Jerry Brown

Towing heavy? Check out this hitch.

If you are thinking about buying or moving up to a really big fifth wheel, you might want to keep an eye on the Diamond Hitch from Blue Ox. This baby is rated for trailers up 33,000 lbs with tongue weights up to 7,500 lbs. The model shown is a gooseneck hitch.

If you're not familiar with the gooseneck hitch, it's a ball-and-socket-type design with the ball mounted in the truck bed. You'll see a lot of them on ranch trucks. With only the ball in the truck bed, it's easy to use the truck for other hauling when it's not towing. Fifth wheel trailers need a gooseneck extension in order to adapt to this type of hitch. But a fifth wheel version of the Diamond Hitch is planned for the near future. Stay tuned. — Jerry Brown

Hitch care

I talk about hitch lubing in a couple of places in The Fifth Wheel Bible, including in this tip:

Tip – Lube your hitch: When you disassemble your hitch, you have the opportunity to give it quick checkup and lubrication. Flip over the plate assembly and inspect moving parts that are not normally visible or easy to reach with lubricants. Clean and spray where needed.

But Jim Tramley has outdone me with his humerous post on hitch maintenence. Not only is it fun to read, but his step by step photographs illustrate the procedure very nicely. — Jerry Brown

"The Fifth Wheel Bible"is available at RVbookstore.com

Truck ratings

Prompted by Jim Twamley's post on a classy medium duty tow truck, I thought I'd share an excerpt from my book, The Fifth Wheel Bible:

Truck classifications and ratings
Trucks are divided into light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty classifications depending on hauling capacity, defined as gross vehicle weight rating (the same GVWR that we saw for trailer weight ratings). GVWR is the maximum load the vehicle is rated for, including fuel, passengers and any cargo, plus the weight of the payload, in our case the pin weight of the trailer (more on this shortly). The GVWR ratings for light, medium and heavy-duty classifications are as follows:

Class	GVWR	Examples
Light duty	Up to 14,000 lbs.	Most pickups and vans up to 1 ton
Medium duty	14,000 – 33,000 lbs.	Cargo and larger delivery trucks
Heavy duty	Over 33,000 lbs.	Big rig tractors, dump trucks

Pickup trucks, the most common fifth wheel tow vehicles, are all light duty trucks by this rating – even one ton models. You will see medium duty trucks towing many of the largest fifth wheels and heavy duty trucks used as tow vehicles are not uncommon. Although these larger trucks get lower fuel mileage, their increased towing capacity and braking capabilities, especially on grades, make them attractive tow vehicles. — Jerry Brown

Check out "The Fifth Wheel Bible" at RVbookstore.com

Sixty footer?

There's no photo here because 60 foot fivers don't exist. In fact the largest fifth wheel models that I'm aware of are 40 feet, nominally anyway. In actual size they go up to about 44 feet.

But I ran across a story that the Recreation Vehicle Industry Assocation board of directors "will pursue federal legislation allowing fifth-wheel trailers to exceed the current 400-square-foot-limit" (and trailers to exceed their present 320 square foot limit). At 400 square feet, an eight-foot-wide trailer would have to be 50 feet long. And they want to go bigger! I don't know if the 400-square-foot limit takes slides into consideration. Why would the feds care how many square feet a trailer with its slides extended has? Well, maybe they do care and this is really about just making trailers more spacious. What do you think? Are present fifth wheel trailers big enough? Please leave a comment.

Casino Camping

This isn't strictly speaking a fifth wheel post. But if you're planning on towing your fiver on a long haul and just need a place or two to stop for the night along the way, make sure you check out FreeCampgrounds.com before you leave. I just made the pull from the SF Bay area to Eugene, OR. With all the recent bad weather on the west coast, I didn't really want to go through the northern California mountains at night. A quick browsing of FreeCampgrounds turned up the Win-River Casino, just south of Redding. It was a nice spot to spend the night, dry camping of course. Next day I-5 was clear and dry all the way. — Jerry Brown