Short bed or long bed?

rjxj wrote:
I didnt want that long of a truck so I bought a short bed Ram 3500 crew. The trailer is 101 inch wide flat front. Hitch is a Pull rite 18,000 auto slider. It has about 8 inches of clearance at 90 degrees. It slides back 14 inches. I'm about 2 inches behind axle center and I have room for a Honda 3000 with a box built over it and will probably get a cross bed rear opening storage box.
More room would be nice but I dont like that long of a truck and I just like the look of a shorter bed truck. If you want more storage room and not concerned with the length while parking the truck when not towing get the long bed.
If you get a long bed, in theory you could probably buy a used hitch on Craigslist for a couple hundred bucks. My auto slider was $1,300 plus the picture frame, low profile feet, Capture plate and Dodge through bed puck kit. Everything was almost $2,700.
Then you get into the height of the trailer vs the truck. The pull Rite auto slider is just below the top of my bed. So an 8 ft with a regular hitch would drop your hitch height 2 or 3 inches, maybe 4 but I'm not sure but it may also drop your clearance from bed rails to 5er. I raised my trailer 7 inches with an axle flip and 16 inch tire upgrade but I'm sure I also have at least 8 inch of bed rail to 5er clearance.
I was concerned with the height but it doesn't matter if its 12 ft 3 in or 12 ft 10 in. What it did do is get me a lot of clearance for not dragging tail or hitting stuff when offroad.
They dont make it easy on us, always having to decide on how to blow money.