5th wheel pulling a jeep!

wantabe351 wrote:
I was on vacation traveling to Colorado from NJ on I80 in Nebraska, when in the east bound lane was a Med duty truck pulling a nice Hi-Line 5th wheel and behind that was a Jeep in tow. It all happened so fast for we were traveling in oppsite directions. Now I understand that most Hi-Line 5ers have a strong frame, but to take the stresses exerted towing a 3500lb jeep is something special in my book. I tried looking up info on this large of a double tamdem towing in search but found nothing..

The first double tow I saw with anything larger than a small 1500 lb boat was in CO in 1984. While sitting in a pull our spot going up the east side of 9400' La Veta Pass a early '80s F250 diesel with a 25'-28' 5th wheel pulling a full size Bronco huffed by with a huge line of black smoke going up the pass. The F250 diesel was a pre turbo 6.9 or 7.3. Man do they ever roll the smoke in the mountains.

I double towed with a 90 2500 chevy 5.7 and a 26' 5er and a 3400 lb bass boat for eight years. We hit many of the COE lakes in OK/AR/MO/TX/KS. A good custom fabed hitch welded to the first trailers main frame rails and cross members is required.

Don't let Lippert off the hook that easy - some of their failures have been inexcusable, regardless of how rare.

I did tow a boat with Lippert frame and it turned out OK, but remember it isn't just towing in a straight line. There is considerable side stress on the frame when turning in town because of the excessive length of I-beam behind the axles. You don't have that on a standard vehicle receiver hitch. In some turns, the rear trailer can be almost a 90 degree side pull. The rear drag wants to pull sideways on those thin spring hangers. Might consider strengthening them.

Thats nothing after all its only pulling it 4 down,you otta see a gold wing hanging from the back of a 5er -off the ground on its own hydr lift,what do they weigh ? 8-900 pounds?
Pulling a jeep on 4 wheels is just pulling .

steelpony5555 wrote:
That should tell you that the talk of Lippert frames is a small fraction of the frames out there and were just defective from the factory. I highly doubt Lippert can x-ray all the steel and every weld, so they will have some bad metal and bad welds get thru. You only hear of the bad never the hundreds of thousands of good. So a few bad frames will be shouted about on line and make it look like Lippert is a bad product????? But sit back and think of the hundreds of thousands of frames out there. For every bad frame problem there are 100's of good frames. Double towing is fairly common out west and thousands of folks do it with no problems. Here in Texas we see trailers pulling boats, flat beds with 4-wheelers and jeeps all the time. Just needs to be set up and welded correctly and no your cousins boyfriend who just got a welder for Christmas is not the man for the job.

Couldn't have put it better myself. I double tow 5er and 17ft boat. Professionally welded hitch, Lippert chassis, no problems in 30,000 + miles.

That should tell you that the talk of Lippert frames is a small fraction of the frames out there and were just defective from the factory. I highly doubt Lippert can x-ray all the steel and every weld, so they will have some bad metal and bad welds get thru. You only hear of the bad never the hundreds of thousands of good. So a few bad frames will be shouted about on line and make it look like Lippert is a bad product????? But sit back and think of the hundreds of thousands of frames out there. For every bad frame problem there are 100's of good frames. Double towing is fairly common out west and thousands of folks do it with no problems. Here in Texas we see trailers pulling boats, flat beds with 4-wheelers and jeeps all the time. Just needs to be set up and welded correctly and no your cousins boyfriend who just got a welder for Christmas is not the man for the job.

Pretty common site here in Utah, people come from all over the country to jeep (bike, dual sport, atv, etc) in Moab so we see it a lot. Really if you set up your rig properly its no big deal.

Its not the double tow. Its the stress pull on the frame of the camper (5thwheel) towing a jeep not a boat or utility trailer. We always talk or discuss about Lipper frame welds breaking or stress cracks . But I do understand in some states its legal to tow double.

wantabe351 wrote:
I tried looking up info on this large of a double tamdem towing in search but found nothing..

~

Try a search (here) on - "Double Tow" .:

108 matches if you limit it to 5th wheels.
235 if you don't.

(The numbers include the posts to this thread.)

~

wantabe351 wrote:
I tried looking up info on this large of a double tamdem towing in search but found nothing..

~

Try a search (here) on - "Double Tow" .:

~

Piece of cake with our old rig, boat was dual axle ~4000 lbs