Posted by MarkB_MI on September 03, 2017 at 05:44:24 from (70.194.6.39):
Back in June I posted a question on fifth-wheel hitches; I was trying to figure out what the optimum height is for a hitch so I could select the right combination of components. I was thinking the nominal height should be about 48 inches above the ground, allowing a couple of inches of sag. So about 50 inches off the ground, which worked out to 16 inches above my truck bed. The combination of components I wanted to use added up to (I thought) 17-1/2 inches. Here's how it turned out.
Reading the specs on etrailer dot com, I thought the combination of the Curt A16 head, slider, and GM puck mount adapter was going to have a minimum height of 17-1/2 inches. I thought that was close enough, so I opted for the A16 head instead of the shorter and cheaper E16. But when I got everthing installed, I was shocked to find the real hitch height was over 19 inches! The specs didn't include the height of the puck mount adapter, which is about an inch and a half. I thought about sending back the A16 head and exchanging it for the E16, but the E16 is a much poorer design than the A16.
Once we finally found a trailer we liked, we hitched it up and saw that it was about four inches too high. I had the dealer raise the pin box to its highest adjustment, which dropped the trailer two inches. I then modified the hitch head by cutting an inch off its skirt. This allowed me to lower it an inch, at the cost of removing the highest adjustment. (I'm sure Curt would not approve of this modification, but I don't believe it affects the integrity of the hitch.) So the trailer now sits about six inches above the truck bed sidewalls, which is enough to allow for plenty of movement. The trailer is still about three inches higher in front than in the rear, but we can live with that.
The interesting thing I discovered is that I really don't need the slider with my trailer. The nose of the trailer is curved, which allows it to turn sixty degrees or more without hitting anything. A slider is still needed to get a full ninety degrees, but do you ever really need to do that? A little planning and you shouldn't find yourself in a bind. Using the fixed puck-mount legs instead of the slider and puck adapter would have lowered the hitch several inches.
FWIW, 48 inches does seem to be the nominal pin height for a fifth wheel travel trailer, at least for the "half-ton towable" ones. It seems to me trailer manufacturers need to make this a bit higher, given that half-ton pickups are getting really tall these days. And three-quarter ton trucks like mine seem to run a couple inches taller than half-tons.
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