crushing bed rails
As a new 5er owner but with 25 years of driving big rig trucks, and 10 year experience pulling TTS. I never had trouble being careful with bed rails as most of you know that can be a problem with 5ers in some situations. I have such a situation at my mountain home in Boise Idaho. I drag my Keystone 5er 29RL up to about the 4500 foot elevation and the roads are dirt but wide enough to negotiate all the turns, but there are some that are pretty tight, Because of my truck driving experience, I have no problem bringing Mustang Sally up the mountain. Well to make this thread short let me say that when I back my 5er I have to back it down a pretty good slope to Mustang Sally's parking spot. I do have the luxury of backing it using the driver's side advantage for backing her into the spot. The bed rail situation comes into play when I start to cut the trailer into the spot. As my 2500HD GMC starts to turn it has to dip down to the side angle slope of this driveway and that causes one side of the truck to dip and thus causing the clearance of the opposite side of the truck bed rail to diminish. Because the 5er axles and wheels are in a different plain (level) the truck bed dips up to the one side of the 5ers nose. Having said all of that the bottom line is when the truck dips to one side or the other then the bed rail becomes an issue. Just be careful when backing or turning forward when the rear axle of your truck dips to either side. Your truck axle can only be at a certain angle before the bed rails become a problem. The wife watches my bed rails when I make this backing maneuver and I know about how much dip my truck bed can make before the nose of Mustang Sally gets dangerously close to my bed rails Go slow when in this scenario and have some one spot the bed rail distance to be sure you maintain a safe clearance. May be this a good time to tell you that I have an Anderson Ultimate hitch that works on a ball and socket system instead of the fifth wheel plate connection that many of you may have There is more lateral swivel with the ball system verses the fifth wheel hitch plate. I don't think the standard fifth wheel hitch has that much lateral movement as I do with the Anderson system but the ball system does tilt from side to side more
