We have quite a bit of chucking going when pulling our 5er...makes going over those bumpy bridges almost unbearable. Hitch is a Resse 18K slider similar to this model: Reese Slider Our 5er is a Wildcat 29BHP, probably somewhere around 10K to 11K loaded. Truck is 1996 F350 7.3 CCLB 4X4. Surprisingly, I couldn't find much info on the first 10 pages or so of the search engine on here related to the TrailAir RotaFlex pin box upgrade for lippert frames. It is essentially the base model pin box upgrade in the TrailAir product line, and it claims to "significantly reduce chucking". Does anyone have any experience with this to confirm (or deny) this claim or whether or not this is a good upgrade? Presumably, the higher end lines of the pin boxes offer better ride quality, but the price for the RoatFlex is reasonable enough to be considering it right now.

We traveled for 5 years with our 36' 5th wheel and a regular king pin, then bought a new 5th wheel that came with the Trail Air king pin with air ride. A world of difference, the 5th wheel rides so much smoother over bumpy roads. Just floats along, highly recommend any brand of cushioned king pin that takes the "BAM" out of those bumpy roads. There's a lot of bad roads out there.

missourijan wrote:We traveled for 5 years with our 36' 5th wheel and a regular king pin, then bought a new 5th wheel that came with the Trail Air king pin with air ride. A world of difference, the 5th wheel rides so much smoother over bumpy roads. Just floats along, highly recommend any brand of cushioned king pin that takes the "BAM" out of those bumpy roads. There's a lot of bad roads out there.Sadly, the roads we were on weren't terribly bad. The roads in GA were a little bumpy, but our FL roads smoothed out pretty nicely...and still the chucking. The model I'm looking at isn't the AirRide, but it is cushioned so I'm hopeful that "anything will help".

I'm also interested in this forum. The new 5er's we've looked at had the rotaflex king pin. not sure if it really works as well as the Air Ride king pin system.

The best pin box extension I've used to eliminate chucking and fore/aft surging was the Demco Glide Ride. The Glide Ride eliminated probably 85% to 90% of the chucking we experienced with a previous 5th wheel that came from the factory with a solid pin box extension. I towed with it for about 9 years without any problems whatsoever. The Demco Glide Ride was standard equipment on the HitchHiker 5th wheels for a number of years.Our current 5th wheel has the TrailAir tri-glide pin box extension. The air cushioning of the vertical loads is nice, and the tri-glide linkage (very similar to the Demco Glide Ride) works almost as well as the Demco.Just another option.....Rusty

I have had a Trail Air since 2003, and it was great - except for the chucking! I was going to use it on my new FW, but it would not fit! I debated, but where I had good luck previously, I "bit-the-bullet" and went with the Rota-Flex, and NO chucking! Best move I ever made.Now if I can find someone that wants my old one! Ha.

TrailAir RotaFlex - Opinions | Good Sam Community

13 Replies

Garyl53
Explorer
Sep 09, 2015
subscribed. fighting chucking also.
majorgator
Explorer
Sep 09, 2015
rhagfo wrote:
majorgator wrote:
We have quite a bit of chucking going when pulling our 5er...makes going over those bumpy bridges almost unbearable.

Hitch is a Resse 18K slider similar to this model: Reese Slider

Our 5er is a Wildcat 29BHP, probably somewhere around 10K to 11K loaded. Truck is 1996 F350 7.3 CCLB 4X4.

Surprisingly, I couldn't find much info on the first 10 pages or so of the search engine on here related to the TrailAir RotaFlex pin box upgrade for lippert frames. It is essentially the base model pin box upgrade in the TrailAir product line, and it claims to "significantly reduce chucking".

Does anyone have any experience with this to confirm (or deny) this claim or whether or not this is a good upgrade? Presumably, the higher end lines of the pin boxes offer better ride quality, but the price for the RoatFlex is reasonable enough to be considering it right now.

Well lots of great opinions on the Trail- Air hitch and how well it works to MASK chucking issues.

You have no need to an air hitch with that TV and trailer!!!

Fix the root cause of the chucking and be much happier.

#1. get a great set of shocks on the TV Bilstein's your choice 4600's or 5100's both will smooth the ride.

#2 Is the 96 F350 DRW or SRW? Either way if you have adjust the air pressure in your rear tires to match the load. I only run 65 to 70 pis in my 265/75-16 E's rated at 3,415# ea. Riding on rocks is for the Flintstones!

#3 Make sure you have at least or very close to 20% pin weight. my 11,000# wet 5er has between 2,000# and 2,200# of pin. If the fresh water tank is over or forward of the trailer axles run with it full.

#4 Get the 5er to tow as level as possible, nose high will increase the effect of expansion joints.

#5 Get shocks on the 5er! Most don't come with shocks makes a great difference going across bridges and bridge transitions.

I had some chucking issues, but after the steps above I now tow smooth!

We're good on #1 and #2. Never paid much attention to pin weight, so that could be something to consider. Currently rides a little bit nose up, but I can't adjust the hitch any lower or pin box any higher. Shocks for the 5'er are one the consideration list.
rhagfo
Explorer III
Sep 09, 2015
majorgator wrote:
We have quite a bit of chucking going when pulling our 5er...makes going over those bumpy bridges almost unbearable.

Hitch is a Resse 18K slider similar to this model: Reese Slider

Our 5er is a Wildcat 29BHP, probably somewhere around 10K to 11K loaded. Truck is 1996 F350 7.3 CCLB 4X4.

Surprisingly, I couldn't find much info on the first 10 pages or so of the search engine on here related to the TrailAir RotaFlex pin box upgrade for lippert frames. It is essentially the base model pin box upgrade in the TrailAir product line, and it claims to "significantly reduce chucking".

Does anyone have any experience with this to confirm (or deny) this claim or whether or not this is a good upgrade? Presumably, the higher end lines of the pin boxes offer better ride quality, but the price for the RoatFlex is reasonable enough to be considering it right now.

Well lots of great opinions on the Trail- Air hitch and how well it works to MASK chucking issues.

You have no need to an air hitch with that TV and trailer!!!

Fix the root cause of the chucking and be much happier.

#1. get a great set of shocks on the TV Bilstein's your choice 4600's or 5100's both will smooth the ride.

#2 Is the 96 F350 DRW or SRW? Either way if you have adjust the air pressure in your rear tires to match the load. I only run 65 to 70 pis in my 265/75-16 E's rated at 3,415# ea. Riding on rocks is for the Flintstones!

#3 Make sure you have at least or very close to 20% pin weight. my 11,000# wet 5er has between 2,000# and 2,200# of pin. If the fresh water tank is over or forward of the trailer axles run with it full.

#4 Get the 5er to tow as level as possible, nose high will increase the effect of expansion joints.

#5 Get shocks on the 5er! Most don't come with shocks makes a great difference going across bridges and bridge transitions.

I had some chucking issues, but after the steps above I now tow smooth!
majorgator
Explorer
Sep 09, 2015
diftw wrote:
We have the Trailair Rota-Flex. Seems to work very nicely.

Thank you for your response!!!
majorgator
Explorer
Sep 09, 2015
ken burke wrote:

When we first bought our 5th wheel, we had a real problem with "chucking". The dealer insisted it was normal for 5th wheels. I fought this battle for several months. Finally I got support from Reese (I have a 20k 5th wheel hitch). They came out to our Cedar Creek dealer and looked at the hitch. They said that the hitch was made in-correctly, and gave me a new hitch. What a world of difference the new hitch made.
You may want to find out the real problem of the chucking before fixing anything. You need to know the root problem of the chucking.
I have a TrailAir pin box with the old TrailAir jaw attachment. It works well.

Until now, I had not considered that there may be a problem with the hitch. Did they indicate how exactly the hitch was made incorrectly? I'm wondering if there's a way to examine this myself and/or test it. When we hitch up, everything appears to be nice and tight.
diftw
Explorer
Sep 09, 2015
We have the Trailair Rota-Flex. Seems to work very nicely.
ken_burke
Explorer
Sep 08, 2015
majorgator wrote:
We have quite a bit of chucking going when pulling our 5er...makes going over those bumpy bridges almost unbearable.

Hitch is a Resse 18K slider similar to this model: Reese Slider

Our 5er is a Wildcat 29BHP, probably somewhere around 10K to 11K loaded. Truck is 1996 F350 7.3 CCLB 4X4.

Surprisingly, I couldn't find much info on the first 10 pages or so of the search engine on here related to the TrailAir RotaFlex pin box upgrade for lippert frames. It is essentially the base model pin box upgrade in the TrailAir product line, and it claims to "significantly reduce chucking".
Does anyone have any experience with this to confirm (or deny) this claim or whether or not this is a good upgrade? Presumably, the higher end lines of the pin boxes offer better ride quality, but the price for the RoatFlex is reasonable enough to be considering it right now.

When we first bought our 5th wheel, we had a real problem with "chucking". The dealer insisted it was normal for 5th wheels. I fought this battle for several months. Finally I got support from Reese (I have a 20k 5th wheel hitch). They came out to our Cedar Creek dealer and looked at the hitch. They said that the hitch was made in-correctly, and gave me a new hitch. What a world of difference the new hitch made.
You may want to find out the real problem of the chucking before fixing anything. You need to know the root problem of the chucking.
I have a TrailAir pin box with the old TrailAir jaw attachment. It works well.
majorgator
Explorer
Sep 08, 2015
Bad-Air wrote:
I have had a Trail Air since 2003, and it was great - except for the chucking! I was going to use it on my new FW, but it would not fit! I debated, but where I had good luck previously, I "bit-the-bullet" and went with the Rota-Flex, and NO chucking! Best move I ever made.
Now if I can find someone that wants my old one! Ha.

Thanks for the input, but your post confuses me a little bit. The Rota-Flex is a model of the TrailAir, but are you saying you're TrailAir still had chucking? What model was that?
Bad-Air
Explorer
Sep 08, 2015
I have had a Trail Air since 2003, and it was great - except for the chucking! I was going to use it on my new FW, but it would not fit! I debated, but where I had good luck previously, I "bit-the-bullet" and went with the Rota-Flex, and NO chucking! Best move I ever made.
Now if I can find someone that wants my old one! Ha.
RustyJC
Explorer
Sep 08, 2015
The best pin box extension I've used to eliminate chucking and fore/aft surging was the Demco Glide Ride. The Glide Ride eliminated probably 85% to 90% of the chucking we experienced with a previous 5th wheel that came from the factory with a solid pin box extension. I towed with it for about 9 years without any problems whatsoever. The Demco Glide Ride was standard equipment on the HitchHiker 5th wheels for a number of years.

Our current 5th wheel has the TrailAir tri-glide pin box extension. The air cushioning of the vertical loads is nice, and the tri-glide linkage (very similar to the Demco Glide Ride) works almost as well as the Demco.

Just another option.....

Rusty