|
Why would you want to?! The whole idea of the 5th wheel is to bear the high pin weight pretty much directly over the rear axle of the pick-up truck to increase the stability of towing. If you move it back too far, your tow handling is going to be very poor, ...quite possibly dangerous.
Ever tow a TT in a heavy, gusting crosswind, or pass a tractor/trailer big rig? It will push your TV steering all over the place because the distance from the hitch to the rear axle of the TV. It multiplies the distance of lateral movement at the hitch, due to sidewall flex of the rear tires and any slop in the steering. Thus, inducing sway/fishtailing. This is the biggest reason I bought a 5th wheel trailer. My behemoth 38 foot 5th wheel handles way better than my 24" TT does using the same truck. Towing the TT, for any long distance, just wears me out.
A little off topic, but....
I came through Arizona with the new Montana last fall and had some pretty severe crosswinds. It handled like a dream, I could feel a little buffeting, but nothing uncomfortable. I talked to a guy at a rest stop one morning. He was a nervous wreck. It seems that the crosswinds had blown his motorhome fully into the oncoming lane about three times, once with an oncoming Semi at a scarily close closing distance. He was seriously thinking about trading it in on a 5er after I told him that I was having no trouble with the crosswinds.
Do us, and yourself, a favor. Be safe and use the hitch as it was designed to be used. Don't wind up as a highway statistic, please.
*****************************
Here is someone else's opinion. Don't know if he is an expert or not, but he wrote a book about 5th wheeling.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Sliding hitches
In a recent post in the Fifth Wheels topic at the RVTravel Forum, a gentleman asked about towing with a sliding hitch in the rear position. It seems he had dented his pickup cab while parking his fiver for the first time. He had failed to move the slider. Here's an excerpt from my book on this subject:
The two main types of fiver hitches are stationary and sliding. As we mentioned in Chapter 6, sliding hitches may be necessary with short bed trucks to ensure enough clearance between truck cab and trailer nose when making tight turns. During normal operation, the hitch is positioned over the rear axle to ensure safe and balanced towing. It can be moved to the rear when necessary. This is done by stopping, releasing the slide handle, and then slowly pulling the truck forward while the trailer brakes are held using the brake controller. The hitch should lock in at the rear position, making it safe to maneuver into camp sites or negotiate sharp turns. The procedure is reversed to return the hitch to the forward towing position. It is not safe to tow at normal speeds with a sliding hitch in the rear position. This places the pin weight behind the rear axle, which can cause steering problems or instability with the tow vehicle.
PullRite makes a “SuperGlide” sliding hitch that automatically adjusts the spacing between the trailer and the pickup cab during turns, without requiring the driver to exit the vehicle and manually operate the slide. A similar hitch is the Hijacker AutoSlide. These may be worth checking out if you have a short bed truck. — Jerry Brown
Learn about Jerry Brown's new book "The Fifth Wheel Bible" at RVbookstore.com
*****************************
Also, here is a document from Reese. See the last paragraph of the WARNING section on page 2 of the Reese document (page four of the Adobe Acrobat file).
[url="http://www.reeseprod.com/fitguides/pdf/N50008.pdf"]>>>CLICK HERE
|
Linear Mode
