Questions about 5th wheel/GN hitches

nevadanick wrote:
I have always mounted gooseneck ball a couple inches ahead of axle centerline. I now just have BandW installed by dealer and havent looked to see where it mounts. I will look.

Should be about 2" ahead of center rear axle. I have my side plates the hitch head mounts to all the war forward and the straight edges are towards the front with angled sides toward back of truck.

Mine is on a chassis cab with a deck (flat bed). A pickup with a bed would have similar setup but your frame rails are not straight back like mine. They will have to remove the bed during installation unless there is a model that can wedge in from the underside and be turned into place to straddle the frame.

Thanks everyone for their response

Cummins12V98 won't be buying a newer or new truck but that is what my buddy uses (2014 3500 DRW)and it handles the loads pretty well.

GoldenHVAC how much can you mount it forward without running into clearance issues with the cab on a CC long bed?
I have seen plenty of trucks with 100K that hadn't depreciated much at least in their asking price. And in those 100K miles if you can keep it loaded both ways (as much as you can) you can gross enough money to buy a few trucks. I was talking to a guy with fleet and he buys new and used all 3 brands and his highest mile truck had 700K before it was totaled in accident.

Bedlam did they removed the box to install that?

The Curt goose neck on my truck is just barely behind the axle.

Hi,

The 158" wheelbase on a supercab Ford is pretty normal in towing, so that the co-driver can take a nap while driving. Crewcab is even better, and also used much of the time, with a rear platform for a larger more comfortable bed.

So with a 158" wheelbase, and 1,000 pounds of hitch weight, the pin centered over the rear axle, none of the weight is transferred to the front axle. Move it forward 1" and you get 1/158 transferred to the front axle, or about 8 pounds. 2" is 2/158 or 1/76 of the pin weight, or about 16 pounds.

So handling might improve a bit by moving the hitch pin forward about 2-3 inches, but weight transfer will not change significantly. You just DO NOT want the pin behind the rear axle. When the weight of the trailer starts to 'bounce' - that is on a rough road, and the pin is in front of the axle, more weight is applied to the drive axle. If behind the rear axle, more weight is removed from the drive axle.

AS for me, I would rather not wear out a pickup truck so quickly by driving it coast to coast in a few days. Putting 100,000 miles on the truck will take a $40,000 truck and turn it into a $10,000 truck. That is about 3 miles per $1 lost in the truck's value.

I did see a truck someone posted about here on Rv.Net that had about 700,000 miles on the odometer. It was a 2007 GM crewcab with a perfectly good back seat. The back seat had been removed, it was used 5 years for hauling cars, and then the back seat re-installed before being traded in on a new GMC. I was impressed that it went that far in only 5 years. I guess big rigs go even farther in a short time as well.

Have fun camping!

Fred.

I have always mounted gooseneck ball a couple inches ahead of axle centerline. I now just have BandW installed by dealer and havent looked to see where it mounts. I will look.

Get a RAM Dually with the factory puck system. Then install a B&W RVK3600 hitch. The prep has 4 connection points for 5th wheel hitch and a gooseneck hitch.