Clearance

[Mtncrash1]

I need about another inch to two inches of clearance between my bed rails and the camper. Which is best? Raise the hitch or lower the pin box? Or, a little of both. Looks like I can get an inch out of the pin box and I believe I have 1or 2 inches I can get from the hitch.

[mazboy]

Really, in my opinion, it doesn't matter which one you move.

[BB_TX]

Shouldn’t matter although I think the hitch is easier. Only problem with raising hitch would be if you have a tonneau cover it might hit the cover if raised too much.

[DQDick]

With our old rig I did a little of both.

[mlh]

The one you should move is the easiest. It couldn’t matter less.
Lynwood

[Mtncrash1]

Thanks for the help. Didn’t think it would matter but, I wanted to make sure.

[Jeff n Susan]

I was always under the impression that you want your camper to be towed as close to level as possible. With every inch, front to back, out of level, it puts an additional 400 lbs of load on the loaded wheels. The way the tires are made now, I would consider that.
With that, maybe there is enough to make the adjustment on both if needed???

[Mtncrash1]

Originally Posted by Jeff Myers

I was always under the impression that you want your camper to be towed as close to level as possible. With every inch, front to back, out of level, it puts an additional 400 lbs of load on the loaded wheels. The way the tires are made now, I would consider that.
With that, maybe there is enough to make the adjustment on both if needed???

Well aware of towing level. The plan has always been to make the changes in stages and keep it as level as possible. But, thanks for the reminder.

[BiggarView]

My logic part of my brain says you should keep hitch as low as possible and adjust pinbox as needed. Since the point of pivot action between truck and trailer is in the bed of the truck keep it as close to truck's C of G makes reasonable sense to me. But heh, I'm not an engineer. FWIW.

[lightsout]

It should be noted moving the pin box up or down takes some serious muscle, I just raised my pinbox 2 weeks ago and had to rig a platform just under the box and move the pin box with a hydraulic Jack while balancing it on a 2x10. It was a sketchy move. The Box is heavy and requires some finesse to get aligned. Manually I would not do it without at least 3 guys.

With that said adjust the hitch should be much easier.

[Theunz]

Originally Posted by Jeff Myers

I was always under the impression that you want your camper to be towed as close to level as possible. With every inch, front to back, out of level, it puts an additional 400 lbs of load on the loaded wheels. The way the tires are made now, I would consider that.
With that, maybe there is enough to make the adjustment on both if needed???

Curious as to where that figure comes from. If it is indeed accurate then it sounds like an easy way to reduce your pin weight by 400 or 600 lbs, provided it doesn’t overload the rear trailer tires.

[Jeff n Susan]

I'm really not sure where I heard that from, but I have always practiced that theory, (25+ years now..) and never had any trouble. If you really think about the mechanics of it all, your pin weight will not change much, if at all. What will move is the center of gravity of the camper on the load.
With that thought, 400 lbs for a shift wouldn't take much.

[MARK A]

I would probably split the difference, in order to keep the fifth wheel plate as low as possible, (cuz I have a tonneau cover.
Mark

[Wheelhouse]

When I adjusted my pinbox, I had the unit off the truck. I stood two boards under the box and lowered enough for the boards to make contact.
After making contact with the boards I loosened and removed the nuts and bolts. Then I raised the Monty enough to work the bolts back into the holes and retorqued the bolts.
I had the adjustment done in about 20 minutes.
I hope this helps.
Happy trails.

[BiggarView]

Originally Posted by Wheelhouse

When I adjusted my pinbox, I had the unit off the truck. I stood two boards under the box and lowered enough for the boards to make contact.
After making contact with the boards I loosened and removed the nuts and bolts. Then I raised the Monty enough to work the bolts back into the holes and retorqued the bolts.
I had the adjustment done in about 20 minutes.
I hope this helps.
Happy trails.

love it. funny how a problem can be overthought. Love outside the "pinbox" thinking. LOL

[DmaxDually]

I had to raise my hitch as high as it would go and lower my pin Box to make sure a had full clearance of my bed rails no matter how tight the turn. I tow with a slight nose up and never had any issues.

[paulinbaja]

Originally Posted by lightsout

It should be noted moving the pin box up or down takes some serious muscle, I just raised my pinbox 2 weeks ago and had to rig a platform just under the box and move the pin box with a hydraulic Jack while balancing it on a 2x10. It was a sketchy move. The Box is heavy and requires some finesse to get aligned. Manually I would not do it without at least 3 guys.

With that said adjust the hitch should be much easier.

I had the hitch connected, then removed the bolts and used the legs to set the trailer at the proper height. Wiggled a bit and all went together.

[CADman_KS]

Originally Posted by Jeff Myers

I was always under the impression that you want your camper to be towed as close to level as possible. With every inch, front to back, out of level, it puts an additional 400 lbs of load on the loaded wheels. The way the tires are made now, I would consider that.
...

With my truck, when I'm at 6" between the bed and the camper, we are not level on the camper. It is too high in the front. Our truck is 100% stock. Our hitch is at the lower position too, so there's no lowering that either.

I wouldn't want to be any taller by flipping the axle either, because we're aleady close to 13'6" as it is. About 13'4" or so, and our shed door is 13'5".

I'm not for sure what someone does when they are in our situation...

[BB_TX]

Adjusting the pin box, or even replacing it, is not difficult even by yourself. I replaced my OEM pin box with a 5th Airborne. Alone.
I backed the truck under the pin box.
Lowered the trailer until the pin box was about an inch above the tailgate.
I removed the bolts and let the pin box lower onto the tailgate.
Raised the trailer leaving the pin box on tailgate and pulled truck out.
Moved the old pin box to the side and the new one in place.
Backed the truck back under trailer.
Slowly and carefully lowered trailer onto new pin box.
Used large screw driver to align holes and install new bolts.
Pretty simple. Only muscle required as to lift the new pin box into truck bed before starting. And DW helped me do that. Of course we were ONLY about 65 at the time.

[Montana Man]

Originally Posted by CADman_KS

With my truck, when I'm at 6" between the bed and the camper, we are not level on the camper. It is too high in the front. Our truck is 100% stock. Our hitch is at the lower position too, so there's no lowering that either.

I wouldn't want to be any taller by flipping the axle either, because we're aleady close to 13'6" as it is. About 13'4" or so, and our shed door is 13'5".

I'm not for sure what someone does when they are in our situation...

If the highest point of your trailer is above the pin, like the top of the front air conditioner, you may be able to block the axles up an inch. That raises the rear of the trailer about 2 inches and may be about level without raising the front.

Test it by parking the trailer in the shed opening and jack the rear a couple inches and see if clearance is affected. I just raised mine like this and leveled out the trailer just right.