5th Wheel Driving - Best Practices

[Jdrobone]

If you are backing in on your blind side don't forget to look DOWN on your sighted side.(not just in the mirrors) Those high front ends block a lot of stuff!
Like fire-hydrants! $1658.00 new fender. 'nuff said

[CBTraveler]

To communicate my DW and I use our cell phones. I plug in an earpiece/microphone so I don't have to hold the cell phone. This has worked much better than the walkie talkies we used to use since neither of us blocks out the others speech.

The other thing that has worked for me is to ask the person guiding me to tell me which way the tail end of the trailer has to move rather than telling me which way to turn the steering wheel. I'm not sure why, but it works better for me.

Watch out for ditches when backing from a road into a driveway. My passenger wheel went slightly down into the ditch one night while backing down a narrow road into a narrow driveway. $1440 later my cab and rear window were back to normal.

[Bill and Lisa]

Muddypaws has some excellent rules for the spotter. Totally agree that the spotter needs to tell you which direction they need the rear end of the trailer to move.

I also follow the rule that I don't move if I can't see you. Sometimes this has nothing to do with the spotter. I "pause" from time to time to make sure I am not swinging the front end of the truck into the rig across the street etc. It is advisable to train your spotter that this happens and your "stopping" is not the result of any fault or failure on their part.

Anticipation works not only for you but for the spotter. If your spotter waits until your trailer is lined up on the pad/site and then says "Okay, come straight back" 99% of the time you can not do it because the truck and trailer are not in a perfect straight line.

I try not to allow the angle between the truck and trailer ever exceed 45 degrees while backing....yes I know we can supposedly go back to 90 but unless you are going to unhook from that position it just becomes too difficult to control the movement of the trailer without a lot of pulling forward to straighten out. Limiting the angle gives me a better degree of control on the rig.

One last comment on "tail wag" - it can move a lot even with a little bit of a turn. Preparign for a trip I pulled the rig up in front of the house to load up. We find it easier to put the street side of the rig up to the curb as this extends our slides (only two, both on the street side) over our lawn and not into the street. Our stairs extend into the street but so far this has worked. We normally position the rig so the mailbox is between the bedroom and the living room slide - so mail box is a foot or two infront of the axles. After loading up (and retracting the slides) as I pull away from the curb I turn slightly to the right to get back over to the correct side of the road. On at least one occasion (possibly more) that "slight" movement has been enough to wag the rear end of the unit over into making contact with the mailbox as I pulled away. Luckily, neither the rig or the unit has been damages as the cox is plastic and the scrap marks on the gelcoat have buffed out fairly easily but you may be able to learn this lesson second hand (unlike me)

one last thought, I always pull forward a few feet and then back back into my final position (even if I got in on one try) to relieve the stress and strain on the axles mentioned in one of the earlier replys. I once took a tape measure and measured the spacing between the two wheels on each side and it is amazing how much these rigs will torque. I can imagine what a weekend stuck in that positon with a heavy guy like my self walking above them would do over time.

[sreigle]

I am way behind on reading threads and admit to not having read all the posts in this thread. So please forgive if I'm repeating someone else.

Backing into a site --
1. Slow. Very slow. Don't be afraid to pull out and start over.
2. Start with wheels close to the edge of the access road. For example, if you will back into a site on the left, have the truck and trailer wheels within a foot or so of the edge of the road on the drivers side. Then when you back up you have room for the truck to move to the opposite side as you're backing.
3. Slow. Very slow.