New Andersen WD hitch

[JBarca]

A fellow camper bud showed me this. It's new and different.

Anyone using one?

Andersen WD hitches

A U-tube video with the factory guy explaining it. You have to get past MR Truck doing his intro. Interesting 5th wheel hitch too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvM7mCnqmwo&feature=related

It looks like this



I'll hold my comments for a short while to not cloud your thoughts. Ideally we can find someone here using one to quiz them on it.

John

[Clonefan]

How are the bracket sizes fitted? I'm trying to figure out which brackets to get when I place my order. I see there are three different sizes, 3"-4", 4 3/8", and 5"-6".

My trailer rails are 4 1/2" as best I as I can tell, but the edges are rounded, so it could be close. Are the brackets the sizes noted above or are they sized for the trailer width?

Thanks in advance!

[PHS79]

It took about 5 days to get my hitch from Radauto, but I also ordered on a Sunday night and my paypal wasn't charged until late Monday and I got the hitch Thursday.



What I do to make sure that I get the same, or as close to the same, WD every time is I just measure the bushing.

[renojack]

CHD Dad wrote:
Are all of you guys ordering from the radauto people? He seems to have the lowest price at $389 shipped, but has a zero return policy. If you used him, how long is it taking to get it shipped out?

Be extremely careful. The descriptions of the cobinations i.e. ball size, trailer frame size, and rise/drop shank are found in several locations of the descriptions and not all in one place. Presumably one slip and you get to keep what you ordered. I was in the market anyway and was going to spend 6-700 dollars for a trunnion Reese with dual camu , or replace my round bar head anyway, so if I am disapointed, I will live with my decision for a while and purchase something else from somewhere else if absolutely necessary.

[renojack]

CHD Dad wrote:
Are all of you guys ordering from the radauto people? He seems to have the lowest price at $389 shipped, but has a zero return policy. If you used him, how long is it taking to get it shipped out?

I ordered at noon yesterday (16th), and the paypal confirmed payment to Radauto immediately. I checked this morning and see that they are "processing" the order. I will repost when they indicate they have shipped and UPS gives a delivery estimate. I don"t know where they are but I got one indication that they may be in Denver.

[CHD_Dad]

Are all of you guys ordering from the radauto people? He seems to have the lowest price at $389 shipped, but has a zero return policy. If you used him, how long is it taking to get it shipped out?

[rexlion]

handye9 wrote:

renojack wrote:
OK, I give. Ordered my Anderson today after carefully reading this whole thread. I am still confused on how to accurately determine the after installation TW and be consistant each time I tow. I certainly do not want to be too light on the TW. I am glad to hear good reports on trials.

For consistancy, I plan to get the hitch set to where it is supposed to be, then paint the exposed threads with nail polish. I've heard, other owners just count the number of exposed threads.

I would be interested to know if the nail polish (or anything else) will stay on the threads when one has to back the nuts over some of those threads repeatedly to loosen the chains for removal.

[BarneyS]

Don't worry about changing the tongue weight when using the Andersen hitch (or any hitch for that matter) as the hitch does nothing to change tongue weight. It only changes the amount of weight that the truck sees.

The tongue weight, and therefore the tendency of the trailer to sway or not, is the same whether a WD hitch is used or not. The only way to change the tongue weight, and possibly affect stability, is to move weight around in the trailer in front of or behind the axles, change the tongue length, or move the axles themselves.
Barney

[handye9]

renojack wrote:
OK, I give. Ordered my Anderson today after carefully reading this whole thread. I am still confused on how to accurately determine the after installation TW and be consistant each time I tow. I certainly do not want to be too light on the TW. I am glad to hear good reports on trials.

For consistancy, I plan to get the hitch set to where it is supposed to be, then paint the exposed threads with nail polish. I've heard, other owners just count the number of exposed threads.

[renojack]

OK, I give. Ordered my Anderson today after carefully reading this whole thread. I am still confused on how to accurately determine the after installation TW and be consistant each time I tow. I certainly do not want to be too light on the TW. I am glad to hear good reports on trials.

[Clanton24V]

The insurance thing sounds like b.s. but yeah having the entire dealership interested int this new hitch is something I also went through lol. And I too feel it tows like a dream. Very smooth

[KKapa]

We used our Andersen hitch last weekend for the first time. It was a breeze to install, took DH and my dad about 40 minutes. The shop guys at the dealer were very interested in it, thought it was a great concept. One guy even came over to check it out after we were done. We couldn't put it on their property due to insurance reasons so we did it across the street.

It pulled like a dream. We could hardly tell the camper was back there. It was kind of windy when we brought the camper home too. We also had to go through a ton of construction and we had zero problems.

We have a Roo 25RS and pulled it with Ram 1500 with tow package.

[tim_and_amy]

CHD Dad,
It really depends on how much compression you need of the urathane bushing. What I found on mine, was if I was at 6 threads showing, then yes, it would do as shown in the video. But if over 6, then no, I had to back off the nuts. Really between my now new Reese system and this, the set up time is no different in my case.

[CHD_Dad]

I have a question for the owners of this hitch - On the unhooking/hooking - can you raise the TV and TT up enough with the jack to slide the yoke on/off and pin it without having to use the socket to back off the tension on the chains? Similar to raising your TT/TV up with a regular WDH to snap up or release the spring bars.

[Ron_Gratz]

tim and amy wrote:
To Ben and the other engineers. What is the durometer of the urathane that andersen is using? Do you know the specifics? A modeling program without those factors are bogus in my opinion.

Durometer is a measure of a material's "hardness" -- IOW, a measure of resistance to permanent deformation. As you probably are aware, urethanes have a wide range of hardness values.

Durometer is not the same as the stress-strain relationship (a.k.a. "spring rate").

I attempted to address the spring rate question back on page 24 in this post.

Ron

[BenK]

tim and amy wrote:
To Ben and the other engineers. What is the durometer of the urathane that andersen is using? Do you know the specifics? A modeling program without those factors are bogus in my opinion.

Agree, but don't know the spring rate vs compression (durometer)

Way back towards the early pages there was an exchange between Ron
and John where they calculated the spring force based on the Andersen
manual (number of turns and am guessing they looked at the thread pitch)

That is the static loading, but the dynamic loading can be much, much
higher. Especially during whoopee-dos where the Andersen WD system
sees additional compression of those bushings.

Again, that then has all of those forces on the set screws...and...the
coupler latch...

As for the other, traditional WD systems...their brackets has a different
angle of attack for their spring systems.

Andersen has them longitudinally and the traditional WD's has them
90* (vertical) and the brackets do NOT see anywhere near the longitudinal
forces that the Andersen system sees

Issue with any simulation program is where it has the completeness of DB
and the parameters (both static and dynamic) dialed in right.