Hitch recommendation

[steve83814]

We have a long bed. Before we left the RV dealership we turned the trailer to 90-degrees in both directions and still had plenty of clearance all the way around.

[svanarts]

We have a long bed. Before we left the RV dealership we turned the trailer to 90-degrees in both directions and still had plenty of clearance all the way around.

Awesome. Thank you.

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[GwoodTx]

A lot depends on where you tow. If you are confident that you will never need to turn or back at more than about 70 degrees and will never have to maneuver on seriously unlevel ground, a fixed hitch connection point will work in a 6 1/2 foot box. If your travels take you outside these parameters, you probably should have a sliding hitch of some type or a long box truck. There are discussions on this forum and others, by folks who thought they could stay in the safe zone and ended up damaging the back of the truck cab.

Rob

Newbie here. We have a GMC 3500 SB CC. I would really like to go AUH vs Superglide but we plan on dry camping a lot which will probably involve uneven ground. Does this mean the Pullrite Superglide might be a better solution? How does the auto glide hitch help with uneven ground and rail clearance? I thought it only helped keep the nose away from the cab? Thanks!

[steve83814]

It’s a long bed. We’ve towed it for about 2,500 Miles so far and the Anderson Hitch works great. We will be putting Firestone air bags on the truck this week to address the squat of about 3” we get when towing.

[Cate&Rob]

Newbie here. We have a GMC 3500 SB CC. I would really like to go AUH vs Superglide but we plan on dry camping a lot which will probably involve uneven ground. Does this mean the Pullrite Superglide might be a better solution? How does the auto glide hitch help with uneven ground and rail clearance? I thought it only helped keep the nose away from the cab? Thanks!

Hi GwoodTx:

The AUH definitely articulates in every direction . . . it is a ball-in-cup style hitch. This should work well with maneuvering on uneven ground, except that you are constrained by a fixed attachment position. With the AUH, you have to decide whether you want to position the pin of the trailer ahead of or behind the ball of the hitch, because of the pin adapter. With a short box truck, most are inclined to move the pin back to gain clearance to the cab . . . but this also means that the wings of the pin box get closer to the pickup box rails in a turn. If the ground is uneven, this is more likely to create contact. If you go the other way and put the trailer pin ahead of the hitch, you gain clearance to the box rails in a turn, but you have permanently moved the front cap of the trailer closer to the cab of the truck which is going to limit the amount you can turn before contact, particularly if the ground in uneven.

Auto-sliding hitches are curious things (in my opinion) and admittedly not what I was thinking of when I made my earlier comment. They stay on the centerline of the truck, so you maintain the original clearance between the pinbox wings and the box rails in a turn, but you cannot gain the benefit of moving the hitch back unless you are in a turn. The auto glide does not really help with clearances other than if your alternative is the AUH configured so that the pin box wings are closer to the box rails.

When I said “ slider hitch”, I was thinking of my manual slider . Many folks think it is too much work to move the hitch, but I find it easy to throw the single lever and position the trailer pin either directly over the axle for towing or 10” back for maneuvering. This does bring the pinbox wings close to the tailgate, but I can open the tailgate to remove this potential interference if the ground is uneven. In the aft position, the front of the trailer is now fixed at 10" further back from the cab. I like that it stays where I put it . . . rather than moving back and forth in the box, based on degree of turn.

There are some other benefits to the manual slider which I think make maneuvering and hitching/unhitching on uneven ground much easier. I always hitch in the maneuver (aft) position because I can see the hitch out the back window of the truck. This also gives me lots of room to open the front compartment of the trailer while setting up. There is also lots of clearance to open/close the tailgate of the truck at any angle. Auto slider hitches usually require careful alignment of the truck to the trailer when hitching/unhitching. Manual slider hitches can be at any angle. Backing the 5th wheel is easier with a manual slider because the trailer pin is behind the rear axle so the trailer reacts more quickly to truck steering inputs . . . more like a TT. A manual slider hitch is no where near as light as the AUH but is significantly lighter than an auto-slider and comes apart in two sections for lifting.

Hitches are like tow vehicles and trailer tires . . . there will be MANY different perspectives. .

Rob

[andrew]

New owner of a 303rls pulled by an F350 CCSB. It was purchased last December along with an Andersen hitch. I chose the Andersen hitch after reading many of the posts on this forum for the same reasons many do, I believe. I especially liked the gooseball connection, the light weight, and easy removal. After a modest winter trip of 2,500 miles or so, I decided to get rid of the Andersen and get a manual sliding hitch. I think that the Andersen is a great hitch but it has one fatal flaw for me and that is the restricted maneuverability due to the fixed location of the hitch in the short truck bed.

Testing the jack angle at the dealer I was convinced that it was more than enough and I am sure it is on a flat surface if you are careful. I noticed after arriving home from the trip that I had nicked the siderails on the truck. I didn’t notice it happening at the time but assume it happened while backing the rv into my driveway. Not bad damage but it would have been worse if I had had the rails for a tonneau cover installed which I plan to do. The hitch cup was installed in front of the pin as recommended by the dealer. In that position, the pin box will hit the siderails at a 65 degree jacking angle if the truck is not level with the trailer. I experimented with the hitch cup behind the pin as suggested in several posts but instead of worrying about the siderails, the cap approaching the rear window of the truck loomed large at a similar jacking angle. A mistake would be very expensive. I also did not like the reduced spacing between the rig and the truck. My conclusion unsurprisingly is that the pin location wants to be where the pin box designers put it, not 4 inches on either side of it. A friend of mine with a similar configuration improved things a lot by using a 4 inch gooseball extender which they have for the B&W system. I didn’t find that option for the Ford oem gooseball.

I decided to go with a manual slider for more flexibility when maneuvering. I chose the Blue Ox version for a couple of reasons though any slider would solve the maneuvering problem. The Blue Ox weighs 210 lbs so I gave up 130 lbs of payload (the Andersen weighed 80 lbs including safety chains, hitch cup, and mat). The largest piece of the Blue Ox hitch, the base, weighs 110 lbs instead of the 36 lbs of the Andersen and is the biggest obstacle to removal. It hooks directly to the gooseball like the Andersen and the head doesn’t need lubrication.

I basically took Rob’s (of Cate&Rob) advice and get into maneuver mode with the tailgate down to hitch up and to back into spaces. The pin is 51 inches from the rear glass of the truck instead of the 42 inches with the Andersen. The rv is 48.5 inches wide from the center of the pin. The goal is not to jack to 90 degrees but to have more ability to handle surfaces that aren’t level. I also agree with an observation that Rob made in a post that the rv seems more easily steerable when the hitch is in maneuver mode because it is being steered from a position roughly a foot behind the axles rather than directly over them. One foot isn’t much of a lever arm but it does seem to leverage the swing (could just be bias confirmation). Anyway, not trying to diss the Andersen hitch which is as good at what it does as all the adherents claim and is certainly simpler to use. I am just prioritizing maneuverability over removability in my own case. At a cost of 130 lbs, the peace of mind is priceless. By the way, I should mention that the Blue Ox Super Ride hitch looks great, and, of course, I have a lightly used Andersen hitch for sale.

[SouthTX]

I have an almost identical rig and had the same problem. With the hitch adapter in the forward position, I just barely grazed the bedrail and tailgate on a pretty significant intersection dip. No real damage, but it got my attention as I'm sure it did your's. I tried reversing the hitch adapter and that solved the problem, but at the cost of reduced tailgate clearance - and the 17/18 Superduties have a known problem with the tailgate dropping when a connector fills with water.

Ultimately, I replaced the axle blocks with an 1.5" block from an F250 and that allowed me to raise the hitch by 1.5" and return the adapter to the forward position. The fiver is still 1.5" nose high, but the axle weights are equal and I have better than 7" of bed rail clearance which is more than sufficient in any position the rig can get in to.

I don't know what Ford was thinking when they jacked these trucks up so high. The replacement blocks, U-bolts and labor were not much over $100 and worth every penny in peace of mind.

[Cate&Rob]

andrew - That is one heck of a "first post"! Thanks for the confirmation . . . maybe I'm not crazy . . . although there are those who might disagree .

Rob

[Cate&Rob]

A while ago, I contacted Andersen with a suggestion that their hitch on a manual slider base would be the "perfect hitch" (in my opinion). They replied with "not interested". Maybe I will get ambitious enough to invent one of these for myself. .

Rob

[Broue_97]

Gold Country livin' :
what is your exact set up?
B&W ball : regular onde or with an offset?
Ball height?
Andersen coupler : ball front of the King pin ? Or rear?
Is the OEM Lippert 1621 pin box ?
Any suspension mods (truck and/or FF) ?

Tks