Pintle Hitch Travel Trailers

[kyle22]

Was thinking about a 5th wheel but decided to stick to a travel trailerfor the time so I can take a quad or 2 on a sled deck or fire wood or what ever in my bed. At work we run allota pintle hitches, and when I landscaped pintle hitches.

I have a pintle hitch for my pick up and was wanting to put a pintle eye on the trailer I end up buying. I do all off highway camping, logging roads or dirt roads in. Anyone have any input?

For a tow vehicle have a 2010 Ram 2500 6.7 cummins fully deleted 4x4. Trailer would be no more than 7000lbs. These 4th gen Dodges pull awsome, have had 10 000lbs behind her and doesnt sway or sag to bad and would be putting air bags in eventually

Thanks for the input

[Wizard]

Never seen one with a pintle setup.

First thing comes to mind is what about sway bars and load leveling ability. For any highway driving I would want both.


Jerry

[wingnut60]

Just change the pintle hitch drawbar to a ball hitch drawbar--much easier/better options than a pintle on the trailer tongue.
And, as Wizard mentioned, I don't think WD hitches will work with a pintle setup.
Joe

[kyle22]

Is the sway bars and weight distribution really nessesary?

Ive pulled plenty of 20-30ft trailers with a ball hitch with this from 5000lbs up to 12 or 13k without any of that and no to little sway

And besides all that stuff would be in the way once I get off the highway, it would hang me up or have to come off. And the flex and mobility you get with a pintle is far more than a ball hitch

[TXiceman]

Kyle22, the W/D hitch equalizes or shifts some of the weight back to the front of the truck which aids in steering control as well as improve the ride. The sway control is not necessary until you need it.

In a perfect world and a perfectly balanced trailer, there should be no sway. But we do not live in a perfect world and you can get hit at any time with a sudden wind gust and start the trailer swaying. Pulling 10000# in a small loaded utility trailer is a lot different than pulling a large box that has a lot more surface area to catch the wind.

You will have some one come on here and tell you that they have been pulling since horse and buggy days and never used a W/D or sway control hitch. So far thay have been extremely luck. The W/D and sway control hitch is cheap insurance and takes no time to hook up.

For a well proven and reasonably priced hitch, look at the Reese Dual Cam Straight line hitch.

Ken

[Wizard]

At work we used pintle hitches all the time with trailers and equipment, no problems with sway.

Pulled a travel trailer without sway control and had dishes, chairs and personal items all over the floor after a few big trucks went by on the interstate. Sway control was worth the money we spent for it.

[SmokeyWren]

Originally Posted by kyle22

Is the sway bars and weight distribution really nessesary?

Yes. Every towing authority I've read says that you should never tow a trailer that grosses over about 5,000 pounds without either a weight-distributing, gooseneck, or fifth wheel hitch. A simple weight-carrying hitch unloads the front axle of the tow vehicle, and dragging a TT without excellent sway control is dangerous. I've seen too many TTs wrecked in the medium because of sway, and the owner was too ignorant or cheap to have an adequate sway-control hitch.

And besides all that stuff would be in the way once I get off the highway, it would hang me up or have to come off.

Nah, you're rationalizing. You don't drag a TT up a Jeep trail. And it will be just fine on ordinary dirt roads where cars can go. But if you did decide you had to drag a TT up a Jeep trail to get to your hunting perch, it requires only a minute or so to remove the trunion bars that reduce ground clearance. You don't really need the weight-distributing hitch or sway control system at the slow speeds you'd be doing on a Jeep trail. But you need it on the highway between the house and the trailhead.

And the flex and mobility you get with a pintle is far more than a ball hitch

Baloney! You're rationalizing again. My tandam axle utility trailers with weight-carrying ball hitchs can turn just as tight as any tandam axle pintle hitch trailer.

[JIMNLIN]

I've pulled several pintle hitch flatdeck trailers. The first one I had the ball hitch removed and a pintle replaced it. Later I put two pintle hitch trailers in service especially for moving around in rough worksites. They were far superior to the ball hitch (GN or bumper pull) with more articulation.

I've found W/D hitches are optional. You either need one or you don't however much depends on the tow vehicle. I've pulled 16k pintle trailers with box containers at 13' tall with one ton DRW trucks without a W/D setup. A 3/4 ton truck may be a different story.

[3665RE]

X2 on every thing SmokyWren said.

I also have seen trailers destroyed by either the improper hitch or improper TV.

I have towed many trailers with the Pentle hitch. We used all military surplus trucks in the building moving business. The Pintle hitch was never intended to tow at today’s highway speeds.

3665RE

[fbh31118]

You can absolutely tow a trailer without a weight distributing hitch or sway control......but I wouldn't recommend it. Did you ever wonder how trailers get from the factory to the dealership on the other side of the country and there is no mounts for the sway control? Crazy people like me that used to do it for a living! I would have given my teeth to have sway control on long trips I even went so far as to design a quick attach version just for commercial haulers like me. Don't get me wrong some trailers pull great and are well behaved on the road more than some others ( i could name names but i won't) but it just isn't worth the risk of not having it. If I need to make tight turns I just pull my old friction slide sway control off and do what I need to do. jm2cw.

[alvinc]

Originally Posted by Wizard

At work we used pintle hitches all the time with trailers and equipment, no problems with sway.

Pulled a travel trailer without sway control and had dishes, chairs and personal items all over the floor after a few big trucks went by on the interstate. Sway control was worth the money we spent for it.

Seems that sway control on trailers is an indication that there is something else wrong..... why doesn't the trailer have shock absorbers or a sway bar? Why don't toads, like vans and SUV's, need sway control, etc. Its because they were designed with integrated shock absorbers and sway bars.

Just asking.

[TXiceman]

Originally Posted by alvinc

Seems that sway control on trailers is an indication that there is something else wrong..... why doesn't the trailer have shock absorbers or a sway bar? Why don't toads, like vans and SUV's, need sway control, etc. Its because they were designed with integrated shock absorbers and sway bars.

Just asking.

In a perfect world with a perfectly balanced world and limited or controlled outside influences, a bumper pull trailer will track fine without a sway issue. Shocks and suck may help a little. The whole problem comes when you get an outside force that hits the trailer or tow vehicle in such a way that a sway is started. Without some means to control sway, it is possible that the sway will become worse and cause a problem that can lead to loss of control and a wreck.

With a travel trailer you have a very large flt area that wind can hit and drive the rig into a sway situation much easier than smaller and heavier trailers.

So the trick is to balance the trailer properly to begin with and then add the sway control as insurance.

Ken

[alvinc]

Originally Posted by TXiceman

In a perfect world with a perfectly balanced world and limited or controlled outside influences, a bumper pull trailer will track fine without a sway issue. Shocks and suck may help a little. The whole problem comes when you get an outside force that hits the trailer or tow vehicle in such a way that a sway is started. Without some means to control sway, it is possible that the sway will become worse and cause a problem that can lead to loss of control and a wreck.

With a travel trailer you have a very large flt area that wind can hit and drive the rig into a sway situation much easier than smaller and heavier trailers.

So the trick is to balance the trailer properly to begin with and then add the sway control as insurance.

Ken

How come no-one ever complains about their toad swaying uncontrollably? When this comes up, the toad pushing the RV around, it is usually attributed to toad alignment or the RV needing track bars.

Both vehicles need to be well set up; the RV and the toad/trailer. We know, for example, that leaf sprung RV's have more problems with side winds and toad issues, so we add track bars. We also know that trailer, as opposed to toads, seem to have problems with sway.

Why do we fix the trailer sway issues with more equipment at the hitch, rather than adding shocks and/or sway bars.

To be honest, I have never seen a toad, swaying out of control down the highway, but have seen several trailers doing so.

The bottom line: toads are designed and built with anti-sway as an important aspect of their design. Trailers are not, so we bandaid on anti-sway devices at the hitch. It is true that toads have an additional purpose in being independently powered and usable beyond just towing, but the facts say toads are sway resistant, trailers are not.

Got on my soap box a little, sorry.

[RustyJC]

Originally Posted by alvinc

Why don't toads, like vans and SUV's, need sway control, etc. Its because they were designed with integrated shock absorbers and sway bars.

Just asking.

Let's define some terms. Those familiar with aircraft know that there are three separate rotations we're dealing with - roll, pitch and yaw.

What you are calling "sway bars" on toads are actually anti-roll bars - they are there to prevent the body from rolling about its roll centers on a longitudinal axis when the vehicle goes around a curve. They have little to do with sway as the term is applied to trailers.

"Trailer sway" refers to a modified yaw motion around a vertical axis passing through the pivot point between the tow vehicle and the trailer. If a gust of wind pushes the trailer toward the passenger side of the vehicle, the yawing motion exposes the curb side of the trailer to the aerodynamic force of the air through which the trailer is moving (there's also a low pressure area on the opposite side amplifying this force, but let's ignore that for now). This pushes the trailer back toward the driver side where, if the trailer overshoots and exposes the road side of the trailer to the air, it is pushed back toward the passenger side. The trailer becomes a driven oscillator with the driving forces provided by the airflow and the forces transmitted to the trailer through the hitch from the towing vehicle (these can be acceleration, deceleration or a sideways force). Unless some damping force is applied (sway control), the side-to-side yawing motion (sway) can become greater and greater. Trailer sway control either damps the motion (friction control) or opposes the motion (cam-type sway control).

Rusty