Andersen Hitch issue

It is one of the few things other Andersen owners complain about. I've no solution, kind of the nature of the beast. It seems your issue is bigger than some others, maybe due to the air assists. While a standard hitch may fix the problem, only you know if using the Andersen is worth the extra raising/lowering involved.

Jerry

I agree the one thing I don’t like about it , having to raise it that extra inches. I do let the air out of the air bags which does help get it off a little quicker. But I haven’t run into the problem you describe, would blocks under the landing gear help ?

I have no trouble with this with my Andersen. Might want to lower the legs to the farthest hole before lowering the legs with the landing gear motor. Or block under the legs with blocks before you start.

Put a,set of bulldog legs on the trailer 36-38 inches of travel should take care of that

I do place blocks under the legs before I start. In order to get enough travel of the legs I have to have them in the upper most position with the drop legs touching the blocks. This gives me the use of the entire travel distance of the landing gear to get above the ball. The problem comes with getting the trailer level after moving the truck. If the trailer is level when I first park in the site I don't have too much trouble but if I'm nose high I don't have enough down travel to get level because I had to start with the landing gear at the highest point. I'll try letting air out of the bags to lower the truck a little if I get into that situation again, hopefully that will help. Otherwise I think I'll upgrade to the dual motor system with the larger travel distance.

Bayley wrote:
I do place blocks under the legs before I start. In order to get enough travel of the legs I have to have them in the upper most position with the drop legs touching the blocks. This gives me the use of the entire travel distance of the landing gear to get above the ball. The problem comes with getting the trailer level after moving the truck. If the trailer is level when I first park in the site I don't have too much trouble but if I'm nose high I don't have enough down travel to get level because I had to start with the landing gear at the highest point. I'll try letting air out of the bags to lower the truck a little if I get into that situation again, hopefully that will help. Otherwise I think I'll upgrade to the dual motor system with the larger travel distance.

There have times regardless of the hitch when the campsite was just not level enough to get off the hitch, and then get lowered enough to level. Yes the Andersen does create a little bit more to get off the hitch, but even with my previous hitch, I still run out of travel before level. I am sure this is pretty common with many .

Bayley wrote:
I have the Andersen 5th Wheel hitch and have been very happy with it's performance. The issue I have is the distance of travel needed to get the pin off the ball when unhitching. I have to use every inch of upward travel on the landing legs to get off the truck and then sometimes it's impossible to get the trailer down to level for camping because I run out of downward travel of the legs.
I have air bags on the truck and thought about letting some air out of them to gain an inch or so. I haven't tried this yet but thought maybe someone else has had this same problem and may have a solution that works. I also have an air bag in the pin box that may be creating an additional height to deal with.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated.
Thanks...Tony

I don't own an Anderson hitch, but I'm curious about your issue of running out of travel to level your FW because you have to use every inch of upward travel to get off your truck. I had the problem you described once and the reason was not because of the hitch. It was because I lowered the feet of the front landing gear too far before extending the jacks via the leveling systems. Because the feet were manually lowered too far, the travel distance of the jack needed to come off the truck is less. This reduces the amount of travel downward to level the FW. To solve this issue, the Lippert (LCI) technician that manufactures the 3.0 Ground Control system on my FW explained that I should only lower the feet of the front landing gear to the point of 5" to 6" from the ground and then extend the jacks to get off the truck. This should give adequate downward travel for leveling. I have been on sites that sloped away from the road where I don't manually lower the front feet at all. I don't use air bags on my setup. Are you towing level or does your truck have excessive 'squat' with the FW hitched up? If my suggestions don't work for you, perhaps you need to consider some changes with the truck to allow you to tow level or reduce the squat in the truck when hitched. I'm imagining you have quite a bit of squat if you are using all your upward travel to relieve the weight of the truck to pull off the king pin.

I have the Andersen as well. One thing I did was mark the range of travel on the landing gear legs with a sharpie. Reminds me to make sure I have full travel available when unhooking.

ET Crockett: My rig tows very level. The issue with the Andersen hitch is the trailer has to be raised higher than it does with a traditional hitch because it has to clear the ball on the Andersen.

From the responses I received it appears that I'm doing everything I can to get the travel I need. Most of the time I get it accomplished but it's really a PITA sometimes.

My trailer is heavy, and when loaded, the one motor landing gear (Venture Mfg) struggles to get high enough. My best bet I think is to upgrade to the Bulldog or Ultra Fab dual motor landing gear. Hopefully that will give me the extra travel needed as well as the muscle to calm my nerves.

I'm also thinking about an on-board compresser system to compliment my air bags so I can easily lower the air pressure to give me a little more room to work with.

As always....thanks for the input....it really helps to hear other ideas and experiences.
Tony

You really don't need the expense of an onboard compressor for your air bags. I use a 7 gallon aluminum air bubble filled to 120 psi to fill my air bags. One fill lasts for quite a few refills, and makes life easier.