5th wheel?

[don4331]

Cute?

Travelaire W186:

Hitch weight 639 lbs, 5th wheel hitch 165lbs = 804lbs total Payload capacity of 1,350lbs - lots left for driver and passenger

Trailer weight 2,875lbs, B4000 has auto and 4.10 gears = GCWR 9,500 lbs, which in theory it allows 5,560 lbs of trailer, even subtracting driver, passenger and hitch, I'd still have 5k lbs available! So, lots left.

7' wide x 8' tall = 56ft^2 of front area; brochure says 50 ft^2 max as consideration and exceeding may reduce performance of the towing vehicle.

Note, same brochure says 60ft^2 for SuperDuty which would be 8' wide by 7.5' tall and you would be hard pressed to buy a 5th wheel that small (a lot are closing on 100ft^2), so I'm thinking soft limit.​

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So, I might not be able to drive 120km/h on the interstate; not that critical, speed limit is 110 up here anyways.​

Working on securing the hitch and installing brake controller. I should be able to let you know how it tows in May.

If the clone doesn't work out; I have the F-150. But it might not notice it is towing anything.

 

[don4331]

Update: 5th wheel hitch* and 4 to 7 pin adapter installed. So, we hooked it up for a spin around the block.

Lesson 1: My daughter is atrocious at lining up the pin on the 5th wheel. (OK, she's only had her license for a couple months, but she could look right at it through the open slider of the rear window.)

Much as she is unhappy about it, she doesn't disagree that there might be some wisdom to dad not wanting her to take the trailer to lake until she has a little more experience driving.​

Lesson 2: (And this had me really nervous). We connected to the trailer with B4000 in 4 low so we could do things slowly and carefully. When she pulled off the drive, the rear wheels were squeaking and slipping. For a moment, I was afraid the trailer was pulling super heavy and Ranger wasn't up to it. But once I realized she was still in 4x4, I got her to shift to 2wd, it towed fine. (I told her to take it our of 4wd, she though I only meant take it out of 4 low).

Lesson 3: The trailer is big enough to wag the dog. We drove over a couple man hole covers, and trailer will rock the truck side to side, which is different than when towing a regular trailer. The fact that 99% of weight went straight rear axle and remaining percent added to front, meant no issues with steering or headlight focus which was nice.

Lesson 4: I need to train my spotters on assisting me when backing up the trailer. I was a little nervous about trailer to cab clearance when cutting the trailer from street to the drive, but we were fine. We did need a couple extra attempts to get it within a couple inches of the grass on edge of driveway and couple inches of garage (and of course, everyone in neighbourhood had to watch).

Lesson 5: Tell the crew, we want pictures or people will say it never happened. They were standing there with smartphones in hand, yet never snapped a shot.

*Wouldn't you know it, just as soon as I finished manufacturing my own brackets to locate the 5th wheel, I find some from the manufacturer at reasonable price. While we were installing, I noticed that the rear springs were reverse arched. Well, next project will be to replace rear springs in her truck.

Still working on brake controller and power to the trailer from the truck but that should be pretty easy after what we've done so far.