Sidewinder after market wedge.

Beaker, are the Fifth Airborne and Revolution the same thing or are they different manufacturers?

There seems to be a jury that is still out on the correct amount of pressure to move the side winder side to side by hand. As for the wedge I am going to do the grinding myself and re install as per Glazers post. I have 6 weeks before our first outing so have plenty of time to order the new one if necessary. I am beginning to think my biggest problem is failure to read instructions. First,I did not lubricate the wedge and second, I did a little damage to it the first time I hooked up myself. I had the trailer too high and the wedge appears to have hit the hitch skid plate and turned it up. The peeled metal perfectly backs up this theory. With every ones suggestions I think I will be set to go in a couple days, and much wiser.

I also had problems hooking up with the same hitch although my Reese Pro Series 16K hitch is 10 years old.
I noticed another Reese in a truck and saw that my hitch was really poorly made.
Hard too explain but edges were sticking out where they should not have.
I had it ground down and also had the corners ground round on the wedge. It was much easier hooking up after that.

It cost me $50 to do that so maybe a different wedge would be easier. It does seem to me in the instruction manual that the wedge that came with it was made for a Reese 16K.


By the way my Sidewinder is impossible to move by hand. It was greased and correctly torqued.

I have made 3 trips so far and really like this thing. It is the Fifth Airborne Sidewinder.

I have a Sidewinder pin box which came with the universal wedge. It worked okay for a while but I ordered the wedge made for my hitch and it works much better. Once I had the new wedge installed and set tight to my hitch I used blue Locktite on the two bolts before torquing them to specs. That was three years ago and I have yet to have to re-adjust the wedge.

Your welcome, I am positive you will get it fixed.

Thanks for the help. Good info here. Maybe I can save 50 bucks in not replacing the wedge.

Once you loosen the two bolts on the wedge, back into it as normal allowing your jaw to close. After the jaw locks, chock the rear of your trailer tires and put your truck in reverse. This will force the loose wedge as far back as it could ever go while being hooked up. After forcing the loose wedge, unhook as normal then tighten the 2 bolts to the proper torque. This should have you in good shape for hooking up the next time. If you attempt to install the wedge by hitting it with a hammer while it's in the hitch, you may make it to tight to rehook. As mentioned you will get some movement at the wedge area of your hitch funnel, this is normal. Without the slight movement at the funnel area, you will have a time hooking, and unhooking.

My wedge was showing some "bright spots" as well, so i reset my wedge so that it actually touches the king pin, which made it a very tight fit in the hitch plate throat... But my hitch is a Curt 16k model with a slide bar across the back of the pin...have you tried spray on graphite on the hitch plate? You can buy a can at Home Depot and sprays on wet and dries in a few minutes-that helped mine slide together easier.

Glazer, How much slack would be enough when reinstalling? Are we talking 1/32" or more?

Yes, I can rotate it by hand with a firm push. I will say I have not greased the pin or wedge as was told not to when I picked up the trailer. I did read the instructions on the web about 10 minutes ago that says to grease them. I probably misunderstood about the grease when I picked up the trailer but haven't thought about that since the dealer didn't have it greased. I will be pulling to wedge and smoothing it out, reinstall and grease.