copeland343 wrote:
I have towed fifth wheels with both a goose-neck adapter and a full tilt fifth wheel hitch and old style fifth wheel. The following is what I have seen. The goose-neck moves the pivot point down about 12 inches. The full tilting (fore/aft and side/side)fifth wheel hitch moves the pivot point down about 8 inches (tilt pin located 8 inches down). A old style fifth wheel moves the pivot point fore/aft down about 4 inches and side/side down to the axles (no side/side on old style). My opinion only about 4 inches between goose-neck and full tilt hitches I do not see a problem here. No I am not a engineer just years and many miles of towing. Now let the hate begin.
That reasoning doesn't work for me. It doesn't matter where the pivot point is, what matters is the load point where the pin puts stress on the frame of the trailer. In other words the trailer gets pulled by the pin, regardless of what's underneath. The gooseneck moves that pin point down about 12 inches like you say, putting that much more stress on the frame around the pinbox when the trailer is pulled.
