Andersen Ultimate Fifth-Wheel Hitch Install and Review // Why did we choose this hitch? [EP 30]

today we're talking about the Anderson ultimate fifth wheel hitch we're gonna show how to install it on a ford f-350 with a six and three-quarter foot bed this is not the 8 foot bed just a 6 and 3/4 foot bed we're going to show you what tools you need and we're even going to discuss some of the things we like about it like the 35 pound weight and we're also going to talk even about something we don't like about it here we go when my wife and I were looking for campers we fell in love with the floor plans the Headroom and the storage of 5th wheels the problem was we didn't want to give up the bed of our truck we're just weekend warriors and throughout the week we need the bed of our truck and we didn't want it to be clogged up with some 200-pound hitch that was always filling the bed and that's why we really found the Anderson ultimate hitch to be the right choice for us we love the fact that it's 35 pounds I can lift it in and out very easily we love that it installs very quickly and best yet we get to keep the bed of our truck completely bare throughout the week in between our trips the first thing we have to do is install the gooseneck ball in the bed of the truck I have one of these that has the little notch that you flip over in the top and that releases the two ball bearings it slides into place and locks down and now we're ready to bring the hitch chip we opted to add the safety chains and for the safety chains to lock into this ball you can buy this additional plate and it just simply slides over the top of the gooseneck ball easy as that next thing up is to grab the hitch 35 pounds you can just tell that it's very well made and that's just going to slide right over the top of the gooseneck ball done next up is to secure that to the ball with the pin and the cotter pin and then double check we are locked in there are three bolts to be tightened you have the one on the top and the two on the front I have a torque wrench that I have here and it is set to 60 and I have a fifteen sixteenths bit I'm going to start just by kind of hand tightening it that's going to crank the shaft up pulling up on that gooseneck ball to load my torque wrench here and here's the top ring first alright it clicked I'm good now I'm going to do the two bolts on the front make sure that they're hand tight and now I'm going to use the wrench to get those tighten down and that's all there is to it this is now installed the ball on the top does have three different fittings and that can vary the height of your trailer for us it works best to use that middle fitting and now that's secured and ready to go the hitch is complete the only disadvantage about this hitch is it does take up a fair amount of real estate in the bed of your truck while it is installed there's some room on both sides and in the front and it's not a big inconvenience but it does take up a little more of a footprint than a standard fifth wheel hitch but we would gladly give that up for the convenience of being able to lift it in and out easily store it during the week when we need the bed of our truck completely empty and we just really love the total package the weight and the convenience is awesome the next step is to install this red nylon coupler that fits over the kingpin and allows it sort of a ball and socket mechanism to go over the gooseneck ball of the hitch we just installed the truck this just slides on over the kingpin it comes with two bolts and this is one of the two bolts that will feed through here on either side of the kingpin and then tighten snug and that will attach this to the kingpin you'll see here that I'm not using this bolt instead I have these big eye rings attached to these chains and this was part of the separate chain addition that we did and in that case these will go in the I will be on one side in the back and the other side in the front and there are attached to these chains which will attach to the plate that we put right over the king sorry or over the gooseneck ball in the bed of the truck some states require the chains most do not but we really felt good about that extra security so we did add the chains we'll show you how we hook those up whenever we actually hook the trailer to the truck this then really secures by four set screws and it does take a quarter-inch hex in order to fasten those in we have a little difficult time finding a piece like this that would go on to our torque wrench but we finally found one we had to buy this as part of a set but this is a quarter inch hex that goes on to our torque wrench and it takes 40 pounds of torque to tighten these and that just fits right up under here goes on your torque wrench and tightens until it clicks we already have this one installed I do double check this every few trips to make sure that we haven't lost any tension on those set screws but so far it has stayed very secure this has not moved at all and we feel great about that install once this has been attached to the kingpin it does stay there permanently you can't take it off if necessary but otherwise it stays on from trip to trip there's also this release which is what will release a pin that goes in and out of the funnel which is going to secure it to the gooseneck ball so when it goes in and turns it is locked and it will not pull out and that means it is secured to your truck into your hitch whenever you untwist it and pull it out now you are unlocked and ready to either put this onto the hitch or take it off of the hitch we chose to mount this directly to the metal of the pin box because we felt it was nice and stable we've seen some people that like to mount it to the actual trailer but this material is a little spongy and even if you found some type of a support I just didn't think it would be as strong and secure as putting it on to the metal we've really liked the placement here right on the tin box it's easy to see to double check to make sure that anytime that we're ready to leave we can double check that this is locked in place some critics might say that they don't want to trust their safety to an aluminum hitch and they would prefer the big beefy heavyweight steel hitch and that's understandable but just know that the capacity ratings of these Anderson hitches are far beyond what we actually need the tongue rating the tongue weight capacity is 4,500 pounds and the GT WR the towing capacity is 24,000 pounds both of those numbers are actually double what we are pulling so we feel very safe and confident the ratings on this hitch have been overwhelmingly positive we would definitely buy this hitch again now that we're all installed let's hook this thing up [Music] our next step is to hook up our safety chains and those will clip on to the plate that we installed right after we put the gooseneck ball in place next step is to attach the safety to the truck our last step and the most important is to make sure the pin box is locked so the placement here of this locking mechanism has been convenient because not only can I lock it easily but I can see to make sure that it is in place and it's secured and it's away from anything that might get caught or disrupted if it were mounted on to the actual trailer so we again feel very good about having it safely connected here on to the pin box where everything is secure and won't move I've gone through my checklist everything is hooked up the pin lock is tightened and it is in a secured position now it's time to see how is this thing going to tow how is the cornering how close will that trailer get to the back window of the truck these are all questions that we had before we started so let's see how it does we waited over a year before doing this review because we wanted to make sure that we were completely happy with this hitch one of the things that we really liked about it is how quiet it is the ride is very smooth and there is no chucking or clanking where the kingpin might be rattling between the jaws of a conventional 5th wheel hitch this ball and socket joint and the nylon material just makes for a very smooth operation the last question that needs to be answered is turning radius how does the andersen do especially on a truck with the six and three-quarter foot bed not an 8 foot bed so how close does this part of the camper get to this part of the truck whenever you're making a tight or how about the the actual pin box is it going to contact the side of the truck this is what we have to determine we're here in a nice wide-open parking lot to find out [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so for us basic maneuvering is completely fine this part of the camper is super far from this part of the truck no matter how tight we turned it's okay the limiting factor for us is actually the pin box here contacting the side of the truck so we're going to now see how far we can go before we hit that danger point now I can attest we have used this setup for well over a year we've navigated in and out of some very tight spots and we can have a certainly a sharp enough turning radius not to get into trouble but it's important to know what that point is when you start to have that danger zone where you might risk damaging some of your equipment now we could combat this problem by taking that red nylon coupler and turning it around the other way that would draw the camper about six inches closer to the cab of the truck and would alleviate the problem with the bed rails but we would rather have that extra comfort of the distance between the camper and the truck it also allows us to store some things in the front part of the bed even though that we have the shorter bed truck so that that is a trade-off right there is the distance here versus the capacity between the pin box and the side of your truck so let's see just how far we can go before we get too close for comfort well I found my too close for comfort spot and you can see this is a pretty sharp angle I can't quite get to 90 degrees but it is certainly a sharp enough angle that the capacity allows me to do any maneuvering that I might need we've had no trouble over the life we have been pulling this trailer again we highly recommend the Andersen ultimate hitch system it's quiet its lightweight most importantly for us it gives you the full capacity of the bed when you're not towing and that was super important to us we would love to hear your comments on the Andersen hitch what experiences have you had with it are you happy are you not happy are you nervous to use an aluminum hitch do you prefer the big heavy sturdy steel tried-and-true hitches and that's fine too we would love to hear your comments if you liked the video please consider subscribing we would love it thumbs up it helps us a lot as we're trying to grow our young channel thanks for watching get out and explore because today is an adventure day [Music] this right me [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Today is an Adventure Day

Views: 169,032

Keywords: andersen, andersen hitch, andersen 5th wheel hitch, andersen ultimate hitch, andersen ultimate 5th wheel hitch, 5th wheel hitch install, install 5th wheel hitch, trailer hitch, andersen hitches, best fifth wheel hitch for short bed, best fifth wheel hitch for short bed truck, best 5th wheel hitch for short bed, best 5th wheel hitch short bed trucks, fifth wheel hitch, 5th wheel hitch, towing, gooseneck hitch, today is an adventure day, andersen hitch review

Id: UT2Y5gnYqRo

Length: 13min 15sec (795 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 27 2019