theboondork's RV blog

So... How did my Andersen hitch do?

9/10/2017

A rose from my daughter's flower garden

I figured I would write about the Andersen fifth wheel hitch that I installed just before I went to Montana and let everyone know how it worked out.

In a word it worked GREAT! I can't see any reason why I would go back to a regular fifth wheel hitch again. It is without a doubt the smoothest pulling, easiest to hitch and unhitch, and user friendliest hitch I've ever had.

With my regular hitch I would always have the fear in the back of my mind it would come unhitched going over a bumpy road, or it wasn't hitched properly and the Arctic Fox would fall in the bed of the truck as soon as I pulled away. To make sure those things didn't happen I would always check my hitch multiple times to make sure it was locked up properly, sometimes even using a flashlight to see inside the hitch. And if I remembered to do it I would also do a pull test by putting on the trailer brakes and pulling with the truck to make sure it was going to stay hitched.

All of that is a thing of the past and totally unnecessary. It's easy to see that the Andersen hitch is hitched and locked. There is no partial hitching, there is no wrong hitching, it's either hitched or it isn't, and it can easily be determined from a distance or from almost any angle.

I still haven't figured out where I want to mount my locking handle, right now it just lays in the bed of the truck where I can easily reach it and so far even that's worked out okay.

In an effort to prevent someone from messing with my aluminum ball on the hitch when I'm not pulling the trailer, I modified the pin that holds the ball in the hitch. I drilled the hole where the safety pin went a little bigger and threaded it. I then screwed a bolt into it and put blue Loctite on the bolt, then put a nylock nut on the bolt. Now this won't prevent it from being stolen but at least they will have to put some effort into it and it will take some time. And the point was to keep somebody from taking it just for the heck of it because It was easy to remove in just seconds.

Another thing I did was put two clevis's in one of the rails to attach my safety chains to. I never used the safety chains on the whole trip and don't intend to unless I absolutely have to. But if I ever did have to, I needed a place to hook them up.

theboondork

The bolt is Loctited in a threaded hole, and the nut is Loctited to the bolt.

Andersen fifth wheel hitch safety chains

Clevis's for the safety chains within easy reach of the side of the truck

4 Comments

Vall&Mo link

9/10/2017 09:20:42 pm

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the great report on the Andersen Hitch! Your report is the icing on the cake, now we will certainly get one for our setup right from the start.

Interesting mod re: the bolt and nuts on the hitch ball. But wouldn't it be safer (and easier to take our, for adjustments etc) to put a padlock instead of a bolt in that hole?

Re: the safety chains, we've heard from a gentleman in Texas who said he was stopped by a state trooper on the road and ticketed because, according to the trooper, the Andersen qualified as a ball hitch, and TX regs say every ball hitch setup must use safety chains. You might consider that when you go into Texas with your Andersen...

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

theboondork

9/10/2017 10:21:58 pm

Redrilling the hole to a larger size and putting on a lock would work just fine and I gave that some thought, but even after redrilling the hole its still pretty small and any lock shank that would fit in the hole would be so small and weak that you could probably knock it off with one blow from a hammer. So my cunning plan was to keep everything small so it would be hard to hit with a hammer hence the small nut and bolt. After all my plan was to defeat pranksters and not thieves. Thieves tend to carry whizz wheels [battery-powered cutting wheels] that can cut through most locks very quickly but if they cut my nylock nut off they'll find the bolt is still glued into the threads.

After you adjust the height of the aluminum ball so that the trailer pin box doesn't hit anything when you turn sharply, and the trailer looks fairly level there should be no more need for an adjustment until you change trailers.

I too have heard about some states enforcing the chain laws for ball hitches so I will have to remember to hook my chains up when I'm in those states, and since Texas is one of my primary travel states I will have to be extra careful.

Tom

9/12/2017 01:16:59 pm

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the clarifications. Good thinking on the nylocked nut and bolt... trying to imagine thiefs in that situation, they would probably get very frustrated and then just go mess someone else's hitch... ;-)

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

9/12/2017 02:23:02 pm

That's what I'm shooting for. I've learned that you can't stop a determined thief. About the best you can hope for is to slow them down, or scare them off.

Tom

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So... How did my Andersen hitch do?

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