How high can the bed rail be towing a 5th-wheel?

[Time-Travelers]

Looking at purchasing a 2014/2015 Rockwood Ultra Lite 8289WS 5th-wheel and a 2015 Ford F-250 XLT 4X4 w/off-road package. The truck bed sides are 58" off the ground, which seems like it may be the same height of the bottom of the trailer when it is sitting level (forgot to measure trailer height at the camper dealer). How tall are your truck bed sides to have clearance with your 5th-wheel trailer?

[TURBS]

My bed rails are 58" on my silverado.
Remember the 5th wheel is going to drop your truck several inches when it's hooked up.

IMO you'll be fine.
I've not seen a 5th not being able to be hooked up because the bed rails were to high.
At the very worse the front may sit a tad nose high but there's nothing wrong with that.
I'd be more concerned with nose low.

TURBS
08 duramax tuned n modded, 32bhok Sabre
2015 camping "2 nights"

[sparky67]

With the 17 in tires on the truck, the bed rail on my TV is so high that I cannot get the 5er level when towing. Definitely rides nose up.
Clearance has been an issue, I have several chips out of the plastic skirt around the hitch.

My concern is how the weight gets distributed across the 2 axles of the 5er, I don't have a lot of capacity left with my set up, but all weights are within limits for truck axles, CGVWR, etc. per CAT scale.

How high can the nose be up off of level?

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[TURBS]

Originally Posted by sparky67

With the 17 in tires on the truck, the bed rail on my TV is so high that I cannot get the 5er level when towing. Definitely rides nose up.
Clearance has been an issue, I have several chips out of the plastic skirt around the hitch.

My concern is how the weight gets distributed across the 2 axles of the 5er, I don't have a lot of capacity left with my set up, but all weights are within limits for truck axles, CGVWR, etc. per CAT scale.

How high can the nose be up off of level?

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Set of tpms sensors would tell you the heat difference

TURBS
08 duramax tuned n modded, 32bhok Sabre
2015 camping "2 nights"

[OldCoot]

Originally Posted by sparky67

With the 17 in tires on the truck, the bed rail on my TV is so high that I cannot get the 5er level when towing. Definitely rides nose up.
Clearance has been an issue, I have several chips out of the plastic skirt around the hitch.

My concern is how the weight gets distributed across the 2 axles of the 5er, I don't have a lot of capacity left with my set up, but all weights are within limits for truck axles, CGVWR, etc. per CAT scale.

How high can the nose be up off of level?

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Not that difficult to raise the trailer.

[whj77372]

Some have issues with a fiver and a truck that is 4 WD, they can be a little higher then a RWD. You should tow level and not nose high. Does your hitch have any adjustment, does your pin box have any adjustment? Many do and if you can lower the hitch and raise the pin box it will be better. Good Luck

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Time-Travelers

Looking at purchasing a 2014/2015 Rockwood Ultra Lite 8289WS 5th-wheel and a 2015 Ford F-250 XLT 4X4 w/off-road package. The truck bed sides are 58" off the ground, which seems like it may be the same height of the bottom of the trailer when it is sitting level (forgot to measure trailer height at the camper dealer). How tall are your truck bed sides to have clearance with your 5th-wheel trailer?

If you are going to do a lot of pulling it is nice to have the trailer as level as possible. It will make a difference in your gas mileage and handling.

When we got our unit back in 2010, I believe I read some place that you should have no less then 6 inches (preferably 8) between the trailer and the truck box.

The reason for this is, if you are doing a lot of back road camping and you are going over small hills with steep grade, you will at some point have the truck going down while the trailer are still coming up. The clearance at the back of your truck (tailgate/truckbox) will decrease rapidly going over humps like that.

We went to visit some friends in the Muskoka area of Ontario and some of those roads had some crazy hills/humps, we had under an inch of clearance going over them.

If your rails go all the way back you may have an issue.

Cheers,

[Time-Travelers]

After many, many, hours of research we decided to order a new truck to fit our needs instead of trying to make one off the dealers lot work. So many of the trucks available have the off road &/or snow plow prep package (and other options that we just wouldn't choose) that are unnecessarily raising the bed for our use ... Turns out for an additional $155 we can get exactly the truck we want over the one we almost bought... Our new 5th-wheel will just have to wait a little longer, but hopefully we'll have a much better match between the two with the truck bed at 54" and the 5th-wheel at 59".

[Time-Travelers]

Found another piece of the puzzle yesterday... We looked at some other mfg 5ers and their overhang sat higher (63" or so from ground). Turns out the Forest River has four steps going up to the bedroom where the other units we looked at had three steps going up and a fourth along side the bed allowing the overhang to sit higher up! (...I think the only reason I even noticed it was I kept tripping over it...). Mystery solved, (maybe ; )