Alrighty, so here's the deal. I'm going to be making a trip from northern oregon to southern oregon, and I have a couple towing questions. Looks like i'll be having a 53' gooseneck (well, set up for 5th wheel pull), flatbed, 3 axle, tiltdeck available for the trip. I won't be hauling much weight, just need deck space. Taking down a 16' trailer on it, 60 gallon air tank, possibly the wood splitter, then bringing it all back up, plus a baja bug. I have a fifth wheel hitch in the pickup already, a bit concerned of the mounting of the rails. It has some angle brackets welded to the frame so 2 bolts on each side of the rails are frame mounted, and two are bed mounted. Opinions on this? let it run or re-do? I was looking at doing air bags before I planned this trip, so might as well throw em on. Any idea of issues with putting these on a pickup with duals? Figured I'd make another heat shield for the left side. I'm not sure what the gvwr is on the trailer. I haven't had a chance to personally look at it. Any idea what I might be looking at weight wise on it? Wondering if i'm actually going to be legal on this trip, or if i'm going to have to go another direction. I have a class b license and no concerns about pulling the length. As a truck mechanic, i'm not sure just how heavy duty i need to be with this little stuff. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all!

 

is that the proper install for the hitch?

 

I really don't know. It's just a set of bed rails and a hitch (reese i think, it's buried in the garage somewhere). The guy i bought the pickup from said he had an rv place install it and the wiring. It only came with factory 4 wire, they wired in a 7 in the bed. When I put in the airdog i pulled the loom apart where they spliced in, turned out it was a snip and check hack job. The welding doesn't look too great, but a lot better than the wiring did. Looks like they ran vertical down instead of vertical up I cut all that crap out, spliced the harness back together, and now i need to wire up my seven way right. Anywho. Any input?

 

pics?

 

What do you mean by "bed mounted?" If you're talking about hitch fasteners in sheet metal, that ain't right.

 

Welding anything to the frame rails in the after market is also a bad idea. If they are not experts at it, it can be disastrous. It voids most all warranties for a reason.

Because of the alloy's used in frame rails of auto's welding has to be done to exacting heat levels. To cold and the weld doesn't sink in and make a strong joint. To hot, it weakens the steel. It's a very fine line in frame rails, much more so then just welding steel. I've been building and customizing trailers for more then 20 years now but I won't touch a welder to a truck frame.

 

any form of vertical weld on a frame can be bad if it's not perfect, the way the frames are formed.. even a good weld can create a weak spot. horizontal is a lot more forgiving in overall strength in a frame weld.

mfg of the hitch? look it up and see what they recommend for install then go by that, that's going to be a fair amount of weight behind you and It would be a very bad thing if the hitch setup failed.

 

I'll try to figure out how to post pics of the hitch setup tomorrow. And yes, for the rails in the bed, the front rail has angle welded from the frame going to the bottom of the bed, with a bolt going through the rail, bed, and angle. It is like this for the back also. So four points total for both rails, are bolted to the angle that's welded to the frame. Then four more bolts go through the rails and into the bed at the cross braces of the bed. On newer truck frames your not supposed to weld them (even have a sticker) I figured it was the same on the auto side by now too. There's no cracks in the welds and the guy before only used the pickup for pulling his fifth wheel. Not that it makes it any better, but they arent' totally crap welds. Today I ran around to dmv, a couple trailer places in town, and finally I just called the port of entry and got it all straightened out. My plan got shot down the crapper. With a class b license, turns out I can only pull a trailer with a gvwr of 10,000# or less since it is a combination. I wouldn't be too horribly concerned about it, except i'll be going by the scales, and I have a funny feeling that I won't be able to sneak by with a 53' trailer So i'm back to square one. 29' of cargo, and no trailer to move it with. So now what? I don't have the time to get my class a so i'm pretty much screwed. Any idears?Thanks for all your help guys. Any pics of how you guys have bed rails mounted? Sorry about the long post, brain is kinda rattled and the fingers just followed suite.

 

With no other options you could always look at a rental truck and car hauler trailer. The small Ryder trucks and pull the trailer with the VW on it.

 

Looks like I might be able to get an 18' flatbed to use. Might have to take the tongue off the other trailer to get everything on it.