How to Back in a 5th Wheel

I'm starting to think it's gonna be a long day [Music] hello and welcome to sunset seekers we're so glad that you could stop by to check out this video I am determined to figure out once and for all how to pack my victory now I've looked at literally dozens of YouTube videos and I have yet to come across one that really answered the questions that I felt like I needed to have an answer and I really need to get a feel for back in my 5th wheel and basically what I want to know is the mechanics of it all in other words I want to understand where I need to position my rig how far I need to turn my wheel in order to get my rig to respond and turn into the spot and so far I have yet to find a video and I'm not saying there's not one out there there may very well be a good video out there I just haven't found it yet now today I'm going to experiment with blind side begging now I'm not sure that that's the correct terminology for it that is the terminology that I've given it and what I mean by blind side backing is when you're trying to back in on the passenger side you have very poor visibility as opposed to strong side beki again another word that I may have made up I may not have I may have heard that somewhere but strong side backing is where you can look out your driver's side window and you've got a pretty good view of the spot that you're backing into and your rig so strong side backing is much easier to do than one side Becky I'm going to do a series of experiments to kind of get a feel for my rig and bear in mind that this is all very subjective it depends upon the size of your rig it depends on the length of your rig it depends on whether or not it is a fifth wheel or a travel trailer it depends on the turning radius of your truck but surely there is a good general role out there and as of yet I have not found one on YouTube so I'm gonna make my own video now my church was gracious enough to grant me permission to use the church parking lot so I want to give a special thanks to New Covenant Church in Longview Texas thank you so much you are a blessing so I've got the whole parking lot to myself it's a beautiful day let's get started now if you saw my Lake Claiborne State Park video you know that I had a difficult time getting into that spot and so that's one of the main reasons but not the only reason that I wanted to take this time today to kind of get the feel for my RV and I never really have done that so I would certainly recommend that if you have the opportunity like I do to have a whole parking lot to yourself then take that opportunity and learn the best that you can how to back your fifth-wheel and get the feel for it now I'm driving the Ford f250 the best engineered and manufactured truck in the world without equal wait a minute wait a minute all you Chevy and dodge guys out there I'm not slamming your truck Chevy and dodge make nice trucks too I would buy a Chevy or a Dodge or a Toyota if Ford didn't exist now one of the first things that you can do to kind of get a feel for your rig is to see just how many times you can turn your steering wheel now for my truck it appears to be a little over two revolutions let's look at that again here is one revolution two revolutions and a little over okay here's our first experiment we are going to turn our will one full revolution 360 degrees now pulled in tight to the spot which is what you need to do to give your trunk enough room with when you're backing into a spot you don't want to pull out too far on the other side of the road you want to pull in tight on the spot now I don't know what the standard size RV spot is I don't think that there really is one it seems to vary widely from each state park or RV campground that we've been to so far I believe that the standard width of a state park RV site is supposed to be 20 feet but I'm not a hundred percent sure on that what I do know is that my driveway at home is just a little over 18 feet in width so I decided to try my first experiment at 16 feet so I measured it out at 16 feet and 16 feet appears to be a little over one and a half parking spaces I thought that would be a good place to start just to get some of the mechanics down and figure out exactly what my rig is doing when I turn the wheel and to to try to figure out how quickly it will respond to each complete revolution of the steering wheel now blindsight banking requires that you turn your wheel to the left to get the initial direction of your rig headed in the right direction so remember that so for my first experiment I turn my wheel one complete revolution to the left and I'll lined up the back of my rig a few feet forward of the first cone and here's what happened [Music] [Applause] one complete turn of my steering wheel for a 16 foot width seemed to work rather well okay this time let's make it a little bit tighter that was 16 feet let's make it 12 tea after a few other tests and spending an hour or so learning about how my fifth wheel responds to the steering wheel my final test was much more precise a remesh my cones for 12 feet now this seems like the standard size width of sites at the state parks that we've been to recently to include Lake Claiborne so I was interested to find out what it would take to get my fifth wheel consistently into this space I decided to change up a few things from my previous experiment due to the tighter space I knew I would need a tighter turning radius so I decided to go all out and turn my steering wheel to complete revolutions and theorizing that this would cause my fifth wheel to respond twice as fast as my last experiment I decided the line up the back of my rig with the first cone as opposed to pulling forward a few feet and this is what happened [Music] as you can see I made it between the cones but I ended up on the far side or the driver's side cone i discovered that with a simple adjustment by pulling forward and then straightening out my rig a little bit sooner i was able to make it dead center into this body all in all this was a great day and I found a foreigner that works for me so let's recap here are five things that I've taken away from my travels and experience so far and I hope that you find this information helpful but if you learn nothing else from this video I want to encourage you that if you have experienced difficulty backing in your 5th wheel travel trailer or motorhome you are not alone with a little bit of practice and experience you will be a pro before you know it number 1 on my list is pull in tight on the spot now a 90 degree blindside back is the most difficult situation that you will find yourself in while trying to back your rig into the spot during your travel so we have focused on that specific situation for this video this is the same situation that I found myself in at Lake Claybourne not to mention that there were state six to 10 inch drops in the pavement on either side of the camping lift road and also a culvert a tree and a couple of other obstacles that made backing into that spot challenge the good news is that not all campgrounds that you visit will pose quite this much of a challenge in fact oftentimes even though you may have to pull in on the Blind Side the site will be slightly or sharply angled which makes things a bit easier for a number of reasons that we haven't covered in this video but with an angle to blindside back you will still need to pull in tight but in that situation you should pull forward of the spot and angle out positioning your rig on the same angle as the site as much as possible at least and this will give you better visibility when you start backing I plan on doing a video on that at some point time in the future but when you find yourself faced with a 90 degree blindside backing situation the first thing to remember is that you need to pull in tight on the spot and just to clarify what I mean by this is that when you are blindside backing you want to position your rig as far to the right on the road as you can before making your turn into the spot the farther that you pull over to the right the more space that your truck will have to maneuver when you roll out of your turn and attempt to straighten your rig another thing that I want to note before moving on to number two is that I also positioned my rig a few feet forward of the spot and this seemed to work for me which leads me to number two and that is turn your will all the way to the left one side backing requires that you turn your will to the left to get your rig headed in the right direction when beginning your turning to the spot now I discovered the turning my will to complete revolutions seem to be a good formula for my rig bear in mind that this may not work for your rig but I think that this is a good general rule to apply I've read somewhere that you should begin making your turn when the axle of your rig first crosses the plane of the spot for the first cone if that makes what I'm saying a little more clearly for my rig this proved to be way too late to begin making my turn and I ended up way off the mark this all depends on the length of your rig but I would recommend this for a start if you have no idea how your rig responds to the steering wheel remember this formula pull in tight on the spot pull forward a few feet of the spot turn your will to complete turns to the left and then begin your turn number three is be careful not to get mad it's important to remember that when your rig begins to respond to which may seem to take five or six feet into the turn from that point on it will likely respond much quicker than you had anticipated and you should pay very close attention to where your trailer is in relation to the cab of your truck you can easily bust out the rear window on your truck if you're not careful make certain that when your fifth wheel begins to get close to the cab of your truck to roll out of the turn now I would recommend turning your will in the opposite direction until it stops and in through a combination of using a spotter looking through your back window and watching your mirrors determine your next move number four straighten up and reposition now this point is going to be short and sweet get your rig is straight and far into the spot as he can and leave yourself as much room as possible to then pull forward so that you can straighten up and reposition your rig or you want it in the center of the spot now once you get to this point the pressure is off your rig is in the spot and hopefully at this point you should have pretty good visibility to figure out where you want to reposition your rig now you can relax and think about how much space you need to extend your slides it's also at this point that you need to make note of what your power box and your water hookups are and then will help you to determine where you need a reposition number five take your time don't get in too big of a hurry even if you find yourself with an audience on a one-way RV camp set loop with fellow or fears behind you waiting on you to get your rig into the spot so that they can pass if you haven't expenses yet you likely will at some point in the future sooner than you think but when you do remember to take your time think about what you're doing don't be embarrassed to get out of your truck multiple times to assess the situation if you have to even if you have a spotter sometimes there is no substitute to sing it with your own two eyes to get the idea clearly in your mind as to what is happening where your rig is headed and what you need to do next well once again thank you so much for watching this video and we do hope that you've done this video to be useful if you're new to sunset seekers we hope that you'll become a subscriber and check out some of our other videos so be sure to click that subscribe button and don't forget to like and leave a comment below especially if you have a suggestion that I may have left out of this or if you have a story about one of your experiences backing into an RV site we want to hear it [Music] you

Channel: Sunset Seekers

Views: 298,062

Keywords: rv backing demonstration, travel trailer backing, backing an rv into a campsite, rv backing, how to back an rv, backing a 5th wheel, backing a rv, backing a travel trailer, how to back trailers, how to back a travel trailer, how to back a rv, backing a travel trailer into a campsite, backing an rv, backing a camper, how to back a camper, how to back a trailer into a site, trailer backing, how to back an rv into a campsite, Sunset Seekers, How to Back in a 5th Wheel

Id: x7k2dMSvJoU

Length: 14min 10sec (850 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 23 2018