Difference between gooseneck and 5th wheel?

[BlueBoy]

My daughter's horse trainer has a very slick hitch in her F-350 for her gooseneck horse trailer. She reaches under the rear wheel well to pull a lever that pops the hitch ball up into the bed. When not in use, the ball is hidden below the floor and the bed is flush. Is this the same kind of hitch setup one can use with a 5th wheel travel trailer? At some point I'll need the capability to accept both types of trailer.

BlueBoy
<hr>
1995 Coleman Chesapeake CP
2003 F-350 4x4 6.0L PowerStroke

[vaughn]

Several places offer an adapter for the king pin on the fifth wheel so that you can tow the fiver with the goose neck ball in the truck
UNFORTUNATELY, they usually cause sever damage to the structure of the fifth wheel---where the pin box is attaches to the frame.
Most fifth wheels are NOT stressed to handle the added torque produced by the length of the adapter. I tried it and with in 3K miles the pin box welds were being torn right out of the frame.
There are also a couple companys--Turn over Ball for one that make a dual set up; it has the goose neck ball in the bed of the truck and then a fifth wheel hitch that attaches to the ball. That type will not harm the fifth wheel.

Vaughn

[RustyJC]

The B&W Turnoverball gooseneck with Companion 5th Wheel RV hitch may be seen here.

There's an even more basic (and cheaper) alternative if you don't have to have the clean bed offered by the B&W. Reese makes a gooseneck adapter plate that utilizes its 5th wheel hitch bed rails.

Rusty

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Tower - 2002 Dodge 3500 Cummins HO/6 speed/4.10LS SLT+ QC LB dually
Towee - 2000 Jayco Designer XL 3610RLTS 36' triple slide 5ver
Travel Companions - Our two Shelties, Brittany and the Bandit!
Come join us on a TEXAS BOOMERS rally

[Ken Lenger]

I was just browsing the Draw-Tite (same company as Reese) website looking for pics of the system Rusty mentioned. In their infinite wisdom, they make their webiste so that you can't copy links to a specific page (stupid considering all the word of keyboard advertising we give them). In any case, if you look at their 5th wheel and gooseneck hitches, you can see what they offer. They have a new gooseneck hitch where the ball folds down into the bed. Unfortunatly, it looks like you have to cut a pretty big hold in the truck bed to install it. Interesting in any case.

see it at http://www.draw-tite.com/

Ken Lenger
Dodge 2001.9 2500 QC 4X4 LWB SLT HO 6 Speed, 4.10 LSD. Jordan Brake Controller, Jacobs E-Brake.
Artic Fox 27-5L 5th Wheel, RV Modifications, & Other RV Topics RV Solar Electric System
RV and Tow Vehicle Weights, an exercise in reality
irv2.com brochure & newsletters download.

[Colorado Kid]

Just to clear up a slight misconception, the B&W companion hitch doesn't attach to the gooseneck ball, you remove the ball from the "receiver" for lack of a better term -- the square tube sticking down from bed that the ball is iether sticking out of or stored (turned over, thus "Turnover Ball) in. The Companion hitch has a square piece sticking down which is inserted into the receiver and then sinched down. It isn't compatible with any other brands gooseneck ball, but it is a very nice 5th wheel hitch and a very good gooseneck hitch. When you aren't using either there's nothing in the bed you could stub a toe on.

[K-Star]

can someone explain why the Gooseneck hitch is supposed to be so much better? If it were so much better than the Kingpin/locking jaw hitch I would think more tractor trailers would be using gooseneck type hitches.

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<font color=rosybrown>2002 Kountry Star FW-30RKCL</font> by Newmar pulled by a <font color=slategray>2002 GMC 3500 Duramax/Allison </font>

[Ronnie]

Here is the link directly to the drawtite fifthwheel rail mount goose neck

Ronnie
Cypress, TX
2000 F250 PSD
1973 VW THING
2001 Sportsmen Fifth Wheel
2000 Kawasaki Prairie 4x4

[CyberVet65]

Many folks were using goose neck hitches long before the 5th wheel RV came along. Ag trailers and horse trailers and equipment trailers. The gooseneck type of trailer was built to haul huge amounts of payload on a pickup truck for short distances. All you did was add more axels or move the axels forward.
Then came the RV's with the 5th wheel hitch based on the trucking industry. These are hitches designed for towing a more balanced load for long hauls.
What bothers me are folks using gooseneck adapters on a 5th wheel king pin.
Have you ever looked at a gooseneck trailer? Really studied the gusseting around the frame? Looked at the extra center and side frame rails? Looked at a 5th wheel frame? Lot less metal there. I have seen 5th wheels being towed with a gooseneck adapter in the pickup bed with cracks in the exterior fiberglass from the frame flexing. These frames are NOT designed to be towed with the vertical stresses that a gooseneck adapter puts on them.
Just my personal observations.

Chet

2000 F350 Lariat Limited Edition and a 2000 Cardinal 32RKBS 5th wheel. Two 2004 Polaris Sportsman 500 H.O. quads.

[mjstef]

It really depends how the trailer is made. I have used one for over 40,000 miles some of those miles off road in the mountains of Montana without any cracks bends ect. Venture welding the manufacturer of my 5er frame says no problem. Others have crappy frames. I have seen Gulf Streams break on a standard 5er hith and would never use a goosenneck adapter on a Gulfstream. I like all the extra room in my bed that it gives me. Have seen a lot of gooseneck adapters this past year and no one i have talked to has had any issues. I suppose there is the odd one that has though.

2003.25 F250 Crew Cab Long Bed 4x4 6spd 6.0PSD 3.73 Dark Shadow Grey
My Truck Our Campground Southeast Diesel rally North Florida Dealer for Western Diesel Performance, Ultra Hitch goosneck adapters American fuel/tool tanks and Jordan Brake Controllers. Dieseltorque Website

[RustyJC]

Vaughn and the others are spot on. The increased length of the gooseneck adapter imposes a much longer lever arm and, therefore, greater bending moments on the 5th wheel pin box and frame than they were ever designed for. If an engineer is designing a 5th wheel, it's not logical to me that he would be expected to design for the much higher loading imposed by the gooseneck hitch arrangement.

Ya pays yore money and ya takes yore choice, but I'd never use a gooseneck adapter on a 5ver or recommend that anyone else do it. Not good engineering practice, and too many failure reports.

JM2CW

Rusty

----------------------
Tower - 2002 Dodge 3500 Cummins HO/6 speed/4.10LS SLT+ QC LB dually
Towee - 2000 Jayco Designer XL 3610RLTS 36' triple slide 5ver
Travel Companions - Our two Shelties, Brittany and the Bandit!
Come join us on a TEXAS BOOMERS rally AND at the 2004 iRV2.com National Rally in Boerne, TX

[mjstef]

Rusty, I have never seen anyone on this site that had one fail. It is always a friend of a friend of a coworker who has had one break. I have sold better than 3 dozen in the last 2 years and NEVER has one hurt a trailer. I would like to see a broken one for myself but no one can provide photos or names. What gives??????

2003.25 F250 Crew Cab Long Bed 4x4 6spd 6.0PSD 3.73 Dark Shadow Grey
My Truck Our Campground Southeast Diesel rally North Florida Dealer for Western Diesel Performance, Ultra Hitch goosneck adapters American fuel/tool tanks and Jordan Brake Controllers. Dieseltorque Website

[TXiceman]

mjstef, I have to side with Rusty as a fellow mechanical engineer. Just look at the difference in the way a 5th wheel trailer and a goose neck trailer are built. A 5er is built to take the load of a 5er hitch, not a GN. you can easily run some cases for the torque or moment transfered to a frame using a 5er and a GN hitch and the loads are much higher with the GN adapter. A while back Rusty had posted some basic static diagrams and it was pretty plain.

And yes, I have seen a 5er that was messed up due to a GN adapter. It was ripping the welds out of the min bow area and it was plain that it was due an abnormal torque that was twisting the whole box to the front of the trailer. The owner had towed the trailer 2 or 3 years with a conventional 5er hitch and added the GN adapter with his new truck because he did not want that mes in hid bed. His second trip out, the trailer was at a repair shop in Branson with all of the F/G torn off the front waiting for the factory to get back to them with a repair recomendation.

Some of the smaller anad lighter 5ers might me able to get by with tha GN adapter, but I'd check with the trailer manufacturer and see if they did indeed engineer the traile rfor the extra stresses.

Ken W

New-old 1995 Avion 36.5M toted by a 1997 Ford F-350 Dually Crewcab PSD, SCMT,Down pipe, 4" exhaust, MagnaFlow mufffler, RideRite air springs and Jordan 2020 controller http://irv2review.com/photopost/show...php?photo=1411. Travel with a Miniature Schnauzer and two small Parrots.---Practicing for our retirement! Have Flamingo, will travel!
Check out the Texas Boomers at http://www.texasboomers.org/

[NJ Hillbilly JR]

Well I'll step up and say that I had one. (In the past tence) I installed it on my Montana when I picked it up at the dealer. The ride home was very uncomfortable, I attributed this to an empty trailer that may ride better loaded. Got home and loaded it. Camped one (1) trip and called the manufacturer of the adapter. I had movement and jerking, push-pull against the truck from the trailer. I own 4 other gooseneck trailers 1 of them weighs more than my 5'er does so I know it was not the weight giving me the bad ride. I say (and thoroughly believe) that the movement being felt was the flexing of the pinbox. The adapter was rock solid as was the connection to the kingpin. I them went and bought a Reese 16K and the trailer rides great.

I fell that in time I would have had severe damage to the trailer using the adapter.

John

2002 GMC Crew Cab Dually DuraMax / Allison
'03 Montana 3255RL

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[RustyJC]

Matt,

I count three (3) individuals on this thread alone who have seen failures firsthand (Chet & Ken) or experienced them personally (Vaughn). This is also the case in many previous threads on this forum as well as with participants in other RV and truck forums I frequent - eyewitnessed failures or firsthand failures. Given the engineering reasons quoted earlier, I wouldn't expect anything less.

Before using a gooseneck adapter, I would urge any prospective customer to check with their 5th wheel manufacturer to determine if the 5th wheel frame was designed for such adapters and if the 5th wheel/frame manufacturer permits the use of a gooseneck adapter.

Rusty