Alternative towing hitch

A local drag racer uses one behind his class A to pull his huge race trailer. It pulls fine, he is known to run 75 to 80 MPH at times on the interstate. As it has a "steerable" axle, it follows the MH perfectly and it can be backed up with ease.

His is not a 5th wheel but the principle is just the same.

Bedlam wrote:
These dollies were more common when people used to tow with sedans:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f464/slimp-dolly-44260.html

Yep. When trailers started getting bigger but ma and paw still had the 'ole '55 in the driveway they needed something to keep the bumper off the ground. The WD hitch wasn't yet on the market so these tongue dollies were the way to make it happen.

The dollies are typically pinned in two or three places to the vehicle and do not swivel relative to the tow vehicle, but they swing left or right in a turn requiring the dolly axle to pivot. Because of this pivot, most use some type of spring or dampener to keep the axle tracking true.

I have looked at these dollies a number of times and just cannot get over the price even though the engineering is sound. It would make a good companion to many truck camper combinations where vehicle payload is already used up but you still want to tow something.

These dollies were more common when people used to tow with sedans:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f464/slimp-dolly-44260.html

carringb wrote:

fj12ryder wrote:
Wonder if that would fall under the heading of a double tow?

No. Converter dollies don't count as a trailer. Otherwise you'd have to call double semi-trailers triple towing, and triple-trailer semis quintuple towing.

PS - I saw a Freightliner M2 4x4 pickup driving through downtown Portland with an Automated Safety hitch. The bedsides on that thing are about 6-feet high, so using one of those is the only way possible to tow a fifth wheel with one of those rigs.

There's a considerable pile of rules and regulations that apply to commercial rigs that don't apply to civil vehicles. I have read that if the truck didn't come with it from the factory, then it is a trailer. Just what I read at some point. But it varies from state to state.

The hitch does not pivot with respect to the tow vehicle. At least not the ones I am familiar with.

fj12ryder wrote:
Wonder if that would fall under the heading of a double tow?

No. Converter dollies don't count as a trailer. Otherwise you'd have to call double semi-trailers triple towing, and triple-trailer semis quintuple towing.

PS - I saw a Freightliner M2 4x4 pickup driving through downtown Portland with an Automated Safety hitch. The bedsides on that thing are about 6-feet high, so using one of those is the only way possible to tow a fifth wheel with one of those rigs.

Wonder if that would fall under the heading of a double tow?

drsteve wrote:
I wonder how much tongue weight this rig puts on the truck, and how stable it tows.

It looks like it won't put much tongue weight on the tow vehicle wihch is half the goal of the thing. I'm quite certain that a large fifth wheel would tow nicer from a bed mounted fifth wheel hitch than it would on one of these dollies, however, I believe that part of the reason a fifth wheel tows better than a TT is the better weight distribution that a fiver processes. I think I'd rather tow a heavy fiver using one of these dollies than a similar size TT on a tag hitch.

yeah.. good points thinking about it more.

Mike

I wonder how much tongue weight this rig puts on the truck, and how stable it tows.