Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch

Posted on June 27, 2024 by Roads Less Traveled

This page is a review of the Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3. We’ve used ours for over a year and tested it thoroughly towing our 15,000 lb. Genesis Supreme toy hauler over 2,000 miles of varied terrain that included mountains, back roads, interstates, switchbacks and dirt roads. If you’re curious how to hitch and unhitch a Reese Goose Box, we’ve included some tips and tricks we’ve found make it as easy or easier than a traditional fifth wheel hitch!

This hitch is essentially a replacement for the original kingpin that came with the trailer. So, you remove the original kingpin and replace it with the Reese Goose Box. The beauty of the Reese Goose Box is that it hitches to a gooseneck ball in the truck bed, eliminating the need for a fifth wheel hitch all together and freeing up the truck bed completely when you’re not towing!

We paired the Reese Goose Box with a B&W gooseneck ball that is designed for the Dodge Ram OEM puck system (we have a 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 long bed dually truck).

Reese Goose Box Review 20k Gen 3 Tested + how to hitch and unhitch

What do we think of the Reese Goose Box after towing with it for 2,000 miles over the course of a year?
Read on and find out!

For over a year now, we’ve towed our trailer on all kinds of roads, including freeways, secondary roads, around tight winding switchbacks and on very lumpy, bumpy, potholed dirt roads on our way to remote boondocking locations. We’ve also climbed up and over several towering Colorado mountain passes, including Monarch Pass, Hoosier Pass and Slumgullion Pass (twice!), each of which is more than 11,300’ in elevation.

The Reese Goose Box has performed flawlessly everywhere. The ride is much smoother than any fifth wheel hitch we’ve ever used, and it’s easy to hitch and unhitch.

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 Hitch - How to hitch and unhitch

The Reese Goose Box replaced the original kingpin that came with our trailer.

We installed Reese Goose Box on our trailer ourselves, just the two of us. It was intimidating but it wasn’t difficult, despite the heavy weight of the original king pin and the even heavier weight of the Reese Goose Box. (There’s a trick to it!)

However, before we describe that process and present our step-by-step installation method (in a future post), we wanted to explain why the Reese Goose Box is so unique and also show you how to hitch and unhitch a trailer so you can see exactly how it works.

How to Hitch and Unhitch the Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 Hitch

The 20K Reese Goose Box is rated to tow up to 20,000 lbs.

Here are some shortcuts for this article:

WHY A REESE GOOSE BOX?

We’ve been towing fifth wheel trailers around for 15 years now, and we’ve used a variety of fifth wheel hitches made by Pullrite, B&W and Demco.

While each one was a fine hitch with certain great advantages, the drawback with any fifth wheel hitch is that when you aren’t towing a trailer, the bed of the truck is occupied by a large and heavy fifth wheel hitch.

It is awkward to remove the hitch, even a lighter weight one (as we discovered with our Demco hitch), and it’s all too easy to avoid this chore and simply leave the hitch in the truck bed indefinitely. Unfortunately, with the hitch in there, you lose the use of the truck bed except for hauling smaller items that fit around the hitch!

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 - how to hitch and unhitch

With the Reese Goose Box there is no need to have a fifth wheel hitch in the bed of the truck.

When we were full-time RVers, we didn’t need the truck bed except for carrying whatever we used in that lifestyle: spare water jugs, patio mat and chairs, portable generator, bbq, etc.

However, now that we RV seasonally, we wanted to have the full use of our truck bed during the off-season when we’re at home. It’s no fun hauling plants, soil, mulch and lumber in the trunk of a passenger car or trying to fit those things around a fifth wheel hitch.

How to Hitch and Unhitch the Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3

The “business side” of the Reese Goose Box is the driver’s side with the locking lever and air bag status window clearly visible (more on those important items below!).

By using a gooseneck style hitch instead of a fifth wheel hitch, all you need in the truck bed is a gooseneck ball and gooseneck receiver. The gooseneck receiver can be a factory installed OEM puck system or can be an after-market installation. What an easy way to free up the truck bed!

For this reason, some people switch out their fifth wheel kingpin for a gooseneck hitch. However, that puts a lot of strain on the fifth wheel trailer frame (fifth wheels are a lot taller than horse trailers…), and fifth wheel manufacturers advise against it.

Unlike a gooseneck hitch which has a long vertical lever arm that creates strain on the frame as it sways back and forth, the profile of the Reese Goose Box is angled and shaped like an ordinary fifth wheel kingpin. That reduces the strain on the frame significantly.

We were surprised to learn that the Reese Goose Box is the only gooseneck style hitch that Lippert Components Inc. has approved for use with their fifth wheel frames. I spoke to a Lippert sales rep to verify this, and he stated that, unlike other gooseneck style hitches, the use of a Reese Goose Box does not void the warranty on a Lippert fifth wheel frame. Like most fifth wheel trailers, our Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler is built on a Lippert frame.

Obviously, many things can ultimately contribute to the failure of a fifth wheel frame, so I have no idea how that would play out in the event of the frame developing a crack. But it’s an impressive endorsement.

In our research, we came across some comments on the internet asserting that of course Lippert Components endorses the Reese Goose Box because they own Reese Products! However I looked into it, and that’s not true. Reese’s parent company, Horizon Global, was purchased by First Brands in early 2023, and neither Horizon Global nor First Brands is related to Lippert Components.

We have the 3rd generation of the Reese Goose Box that is rated to tow a 20,000 lb. Trailer. The Gen 3 version of the Goose Box was released in the Fall of 2022.

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 hitch as seen from behind the truck

We decided to pair it with the B&W gooseneck ball designed for the Ram truck OEM puck system on our 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 long bed dually. This gooseneck ball is a very nifty piece of gear with a huge handle. You can easily latch the gooseneck ball into the gooseneck receiver in the truck bed and also pull it back out using that handle rather than grabbing the ball itself with your hands.

The B&W Gooseneck Ball and Safety Chain Kit fits in a cool suitcase.
The actual chains themselves are sold separately.

That may seem unimportant until you’ve actually lubed up the gooseneck ball and used it a few times! It’s much nicer to use a big handle to pull the gooseneck ball out of the truck bed rather than grab the greasy ball itself! We would have used this gooseneck ball with our Demco 21k Recon fifth wheel hitch, but the handle got in the way of the hitch.

The B&W OEM gooseneck ball kit also comes with two safety chain anchors that get inserted into the OEM puck system on a pickup. These are used to secure the safety chains (which are not part of the kit — we got the safety chains separately here).

HOW TO HITCH UP A TRAILER USING A REESE GOOSE BOX

REESE GOOSE BOX vs. FIFTH WHEEL HITCHING PROCEDURES

Hitching up a trailer using a fifth wheel hitch involves backing the truck (and its fifth wheel hitch) into the trailer’s king pin. It is a horizontal movement of the truck, and the connection locks in place once the truck has backed the hitch into the kingpin.

Hitching up a trailer using the Reese Goose Box involves lowering the trailer’s kingpin (the Goose Box) onto a gooseneck ball in the bed of the truck. It is a vertical movement of the trailer’s kingpin that is controled by the trailer’s landing jack leveling system. The connection locks in place once the Reese Goose Box is completely lowered onto the ball.

So, the hitching technique is quite different for each type of hitch.

ALIGNMENT: LEFT to RIGHT (DRIVER’S SIDE/PASSENGER’S SIDE)

With a fifth wheel hitch, we always found we had some room for error in aligning everything from right to left (driver’s side / passenger’s side) due to the shape of the fifth wheel hitch jaws.

If we backed the truck up so the fifth wheel hitch was slightly misaligned with the kingpin, the jaws of the hitch would catch the kingpin anyway and still make the connection and lock the two together.

However, with the Reese Goose Box, if the truck is slightly off, the kingpin will lower down and hit the top of the gooseneck ball and stop right there rather than slipping over the gooseneck ball as it is lowered into the locked position.

Where we could always “eyeball” the left/right alignment when backing up the truck with a fifth wheel hitch, we now use a small telescoping magnetic pole with a bright yellow ball on top to get a perfect alignment between the Reese Goose Box and the gooseneck ball.

Amazingly, that little pole makes this process a cinch!

I place the magnetic pole directly in front of the gooseneck ball and then Mark uses the pole to align the truck and Reese Goose Box side to side as he backs up.

How to hitch and unhitch the Reese Goose Box with a magnetic telescoping alignment pole

Put the magnetic telescoping pole directly in front of the gooseneck ball

This simple little device makes it possible to be precise when backing up the truck.

We have the two Ram OEM backup cameras in the truck, but Mark finds them inadequate for this job and he prefers to use the magnetic telescoping pole with the ball on top.

He then backs up the truck until the kingpin hits the magnetic telescoping pole and tilts it forward.

How to hitch and unhitch the Reese Goose Box Gen 3

The magnetic pole helps the driver align the gooseneck ball and the Reese Goose Box left to right.

How to hitch and unhitch the Reese Goose Box Gen 3 Hitch

When the magnetic pole tips forward, Mark stops the truck for a moment so we can adjust the alignment from front to back by an inch or two.

ALIGNMENT: FRONT to BACK

The Reese Goose Box has to be aligned accurately from front to back as well as left to right. For this, Mark relies on me peering into the bed of the truck and guiding him verbally until the alignment is correct. For folks who hitch up solo, you’ll probably have to get in and out of the driver’s seat a few times to get the truck positioned correctly. If you have some tips and tricks for solo drivers, let us know in the comments!

At 5’4” I am just tall enough to see into the bed of our 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 dually if I stand on my tiptoes.

When we were researching the Reese Goose Box, we saw reports that it is hard to hitch up. After learning how to do it ourselves, we suspect that those comment might have come from people who were either trying to eyeball the left/right alignment or were hitching up solo and struggling with the front to back alignment.

If you have a driver and a spotter, it’s a piece of cake.

LOWERING & LOCKING THE REESE GOOSE BOX – TRUCK IN NEUTRAL

Once the truck is positioned correctly, I use the landing jack leveling buttons to lower the Reese Goose Box onto the gooseneck ball. We’ve found it helps to put the truck in neutral at this point. That way, if the positioning isn’t 100%, the truck can shift a little bit as the Goose Box is lowered.

Our truck has an auto leveling option, so as soon as the truck senses the weight of the trailer in the truck bed, it inflates its airbags and raises the truck bed up. This effectively pushes the gooseneck ball up into the Reese Goose Box. At that point I generally don’t need to lower the trailer much further to complete the connection.

Just like a fifth wheel hitch, the Reese Goose Box automatically locks its connection to the gooseneck ball.

It’s easy to know when the Goose Box/gooseneck ball connection has locked. First, as the Goose Box slides over the gooseneck ball, the locking lever on the driver’s side of the Reese Goose Box moves slowly from the Locked position (green label) to the Unlocked Position (red label). Then, once it has locked in place, it snaps back to the Locked position (green label).

How to hitch and unhitch the Reese Goose Box Gen 3 and locking the gooseball

Before the Reese Goose Box slides over the gooseneck ball, the locking lever (blue arrow) is in the Locked position (green label)

The Reese Goose Box Gen 3 hitch unlocks autoamtically

As the Reese Goose Box slides down onto the gooseneck ball, the locking lever (blue arrow) slowly moves into the Unlocked position (red label)

The Reese Goose Box locks onto the gooseneck ball automatically

As soon as the Reese Goose Box locks onto the gooseneck ball, the locking lever (blue arrow) snaps back into the Locked position (green label)

At this point I can finish raising the landing jacks up all the way into their fully raised position for towing.

SAFETY CHAINS and POWER CORD

The final steps to hitch up with the Reese Goose Box are to latch the two safety chains to the B&W safety chain anchors in the truck bed and plug in the power cord.

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 Hitch safety chains

Next step is to connect the safety chains to the B&W safety chain anchors in the truck bed.

Connecting the safety chains.

How to hitch and unhitch the Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 Hitch: connecting the power cord

Last of all, connect the power cord.

Like all kingpins, the Reese Goose Box has a trailer breakaway cable that engages the trailer’s brakes if the trailer accidentally disconnects from the truck. With our fifth wheel hitches, we always looped this cable around the hitch handle. With the Reese Goose Box, we loop it through the hook on one of the safety chains.

Reese Goose Box Gen 3 hitched up with safety chains attached

Ready to tow.
Note that the trailer breakaway cable is connected to the safety chain hook on the left side.

The trailer breakaway cable is shorter than the safety chains. So, if the trailer were to become detached from the truck, the breakaway cable would snap and engage the trailer brakes before the safety chains were fully extended. At that point, the drag of the trailer brakes would keep the safety chains taut, and the driver would slow the truck and trailer to a stop.

AIR BAGS

The Reese Goose Box is equipped with internal air bags that use the same technology as the Trail Air fifth wheel hitches. They are inflated using the Schrader valve on the top of the Goose Box. We used a pancake air compressor to inflate them.

That pancake compressor is too big to bring with with us in our RV travels, so we bought a Ryobi cordless power inflator to use on the road if needed.

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough room in the Goose Box’s Schrader valve compartment to attach the cordless power inflator’s locking valve to it. So, we purchased a 135 degree valve extender to use with it. Luckily, we haven’t needed to use that setup at all yet.

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 has the air bag inflator on the top of the kingpin

The Gen 3 Reese Goose Box has the Schrader valve for inflating the air bags on top in the center. Previous generation Reese Goose Boxes had this valve on the underside and it was hard to reach.

The Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 has a gauge on the driver’s side that allows you to see the level of inflation of the air bags. This is another new feature with the Gen 3 that wasn’t on the previous generation Reese Goose Boxes.

When the air bags have no air in them, the viewing window is a black circle. Once they begin to fill with air, a silver bar appears in the top left part of the window.

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 Hitch inspection window shows the air bags are not inflated

The air bag inflation window lets you see the status of the air bags. Here the bags are barely inflated.

As the air bags become more and more inflated, this bar moves lower and lower in the window.

When the air bags are inflated to the ideal amount (somewhere between 40 and 50 lbs. of pressure), the bar crosses the middle of the window at a slight angle.

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 Hitch inspection window shows the airbags are properly inflated

As the air bags inflate, the silver bar moves down from the top.
When the bar is in the middle, as it is here, the air bags are properly inflated.

We have not had to change the inflation of the air bags at all in the two months we’ve been traveling with our trailer, despite being in altitudes ranging from 3,000’ to over 11,000’ and being in temperatures ranging from 30 degrees to 95 degrees.

HOW TO UNHITCH A TRAILER WITH A REESE GOOSE BOX

UNHITCHING CAN BE DONE SOLO (WITH AN EASY-TO-MAKE MODIFICATION!)

Unhitching a trailer with a Reese Goose Box is as easy as pulling on a cord and extending the landing jack legs! I love it because one person can easily do it solo.

Unhitching with a Reese Goose Box (as opposed to a fifth wheel) is particularly handy in situations where you won’t be driving the truck by itself but still want to raise the nose of the trailer to make it level.

For instance, when you stop for a quickie overnight in a rest area on unlevel ground, you might want to level the trailer from front to back by raising up the front end.

All you need to do is raise the trailer off the gooseneck ball to the point where the trailer is level from front to back and leave it there. When you are ready to continue driving, simply lower the trailer back down onto the gooseneck ball and away you go!

With a traditional fifth wheel hitch, the truck and trailer must be completely unhitched, i.e., the truck must be driven out from the hitch in order to level the trailer from front to back.

All this is truly awesome, but we did have to make one minor modification to the Reese Goose Box to make it possible to unhitch so easily, as explained below.

RELEASING the GOOSENECK BALL EASILY — With a SIMPLE MODIFICATION!

The Reese Goose Box is locked onto the gooseneck ball by a lever, as shown in the three hitching up photos above. While hitching up, the lever moves from the Locked position to the Unlocked position and back to the Locked position automatically as the socket on the Reese Goose Box slides onto the gooseneck ball.

For unhitching, however, this lever must be held open in the Unlocked position to allow the Reese Goose Box to slide up off the gooseneck ball. You do that manually by pulling back on a long cable that connects to the locking lever.

The cable rests on a hook on the side of the Reese Goose Box. It has a nub on it that can be secured in front of the hook, forcing the lock to remain open while you extend the landing jack legs.

How to hitch and unhitch the Reese Goose Box lock release handle

The hitch locking mechanism is automatic when hitching up. When unhitching, a long cable (above the arrows) must be pulled back to unlock the hitch and allow the Reese Goose Box to rise off the gooseneck ball. The white arrow shows the nub that can be secured in front of the hook (blue arrow) to keep the Goose Box unlocked.

We’ve found it very difficult to reach the cable’s handle from the back of the truck when the truck’s tailgate is open.

Ironically, the truck’s tailgate is always open at this stage of the unhitching process because you are disconnecting the safety chains and power cord. Also, you can’t drive the truck out with the tailgate closed.

When we did successfully maneuver ourselves to reach the handle, we found it extremely difficult to pull the cable back far enough to place the nub in front of the hook!

I’m sure Reese will address this issue since it has been raised by many people. However, in the interim, we found a super easy solution.

We tied a strong cord onto the latch cable’s handle and then used a short dowel to create a mini handle at the other end of the cord.

Reese Goose Box Gen 3 lock release handle modification

We tied a strong cord onto the handle of the hitch latching cable. Again, the white arrow is the nub that can be secured in front of the hook (blue arrow) to force the lock to stay open, but we found it tricky to do.

Reese Goose Box lock release handle modification

We made a handle at the other end of the cord with a short dowel.

Now, all we have to do to get the Reese Goose Box off the gooseneck ball is to pull this cord to open the lock and extend the trailer’s landing jacks. Then the Goose Box rises off the gooseneck ball very easily.

One person can simultaneously pull the hitch lock open and extend the trailer’s landing jacks!

The beauty is that one person can do this job alone by holding the Goose Box’s locking cord in their left hand and pressing the trailer’s landing jack control buttons with their right hand.

Once the Reese Goose Box is clear of the gooseneck ball, the Goose Box’s locking cord can be released and the truck can be driven out from under the trailer and parked elsewhere.

To tidy things up, just snap the safety chains onto the back of the Reese Goose Box and stow the power cord inside. Be careful, though, because there’s 12 volts coming from the trailer batteries on one of the pins.

How to hitch and unhitch a Reese Goose Box 20K Gen 3

There are two holes in the back of the Reese Goose Box to hold the hooks for the safety chains.

Chains and power cord are out of the way.

TOWING WITH THE REESE GOOSE BOX

As I mentioned, we have used the Reese Goose Box to tow our 15,000 lb. trailer all over Arizona and Colorado for two months on all kinds of crazy roads. Not only has the towing been smooth but we’ve been super happy with how easy it is to hitch and unhitch.

The airbags inside the Reese Goose Box make the ride super smooth. There is no chucking and no bouncing, and best of all, no noise! The trailer kind of floats along behind us.

We’ve taken some very sharp turns and haven’t had a problem with the Reese Goose Box touching the bed rails of the truck, and we’ve gone over some serious bumps and sharp inclines and declines and haven’t had the overhang of the fifth wheel come too close to the top of the bed rails either.

We are delighted with the Reese Goose Box and the B&W gooseneck ball. Best of all, now we’re able to haul anything we want in the truck bed, even 4×8 sheets of plywood. All we’ll have to do is remove the B&W gooseneck ball, clean it up and put it away in its little suitcase. Then the whole bed of the truck is available to use!

So, that’s our review of our fully tested Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3. If you have any questions, please put them in the comments below. We’ll be happy to answer as best we can. If you own one of these very cool hitches, we’d love to know what you think of it!

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Here are all the parts listed in this post and where to get them:

The Goose Box:

Reese Goose Box 20k Gen 3 (Part #94920)

The Gooseneck Ball:

Magnetic Pole for Hitching Up:

Magnetic Telescoping Hitching Alignment Pole

Compressors:

More info about Reese Products:

Reese Products Home Page
Reese corporate buyout announcement (First Brands buys Horizon Global) – Business Wire

Other blog posts about trailers and hitches:

2005 Fleetwood Colonial Popup Camper
2007 36′ Hitchhiker 5th Wheel Trailer for Full-Time RV Living
2007 Fleetwood Prowler Lynx 27′ Travel Trailer
5th Wheel Trailer Suspension Failure – Replaced with our RV Warranty!
Alice Cooper Sells Us a New Truck!
B&W Companion Hitch Performance in a Fifth Wheel Trailer Rollover Accident
B&W Companion OEM Fifth Wheel Hitch Installation – Easy!
Choosing a Trailer for Full-time RVing: Cargo Carrying Capacity
Demco 21K Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Review and Installation
Dodge Ram 3500 Dually Truck – Best RV Fifth Wheel Trailer Towing
Edge Evolution CS Tuner Review – Peak Truck Performance!
Go Cheap, Go Small, Go NOW!! Have Fun & LEARN in a Small RV
How To Change The Inner Rear Tire on a Dually Truck
How to Put DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) in a Truck & Which is Cheapest?
Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch
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Basic RV Tool Kit – Essential Tools & Supplies for Rvers

Posted on March 22, 2024 by Roads Less Traveled

RVers preparing to go RVing full-time have asked us, “What are the essential tools and supplies we’ll need for the RV life?” That’s a big question, but when we began gathering items for our online Gear Store last week, we realized it was a perfect time for us to provide an answer and outline a good solid basic RV tool kit.

Mark just completed two sizeable repair projects in the last few weeks too: replacing the landing legs on our fifth wheel toy hauler and replacing the start motor plus relocating the start relay (so it’s easier to access) in our Polaris RZR side-by-side. Since he had just pulled out all of the tools necessary for these jobs, the whole issue of “essential” vs. “not-so-important” tools was fresh in his mind.

RV Tool Kit - Essential tools for RVers and RV living

What are the “must have” tools when you run off to a life of adventure in an RV?

I asked him to do a pretend shopping spree and assemble an RV tool kit on Amazon while I took Buddy for a walk. When I returned, he’d put together a terrific basic RV tool kit. He’d also discovered a few cool tools he didn’t have yet, and they were all sitting in our Amazon shopping cart!

Well, the Master Mechanic in any RV or boat can never have too many tools, right?!

Mark keeps most of his tools in the basement of our fifth wheel. He also has two additional mini tool kits. One mini tool kit lives in the truck and has duplicates of all the most basic tools he might need for a breakdown on the road or a tire change. The other mini tool kit lives in our Polaris RZR side-by-side in case it has a breakdown or needs a tire change.

You can find all of the tools discussed here in the “RV Tool Kit” curation in our Gear Store or click the blue boldface titles or the images below.

HANDHELD TOOLS for an RV TOOL KIT

Handheld Tools

Handheld tools are the heart of the tool kit. Craftsman is a great brand that comes with a lifetime warranty. So, a lot of the tools listed here are Craftsman. If a Craftsman tool breaks, you can just take it to a hardware store that carries Craftsman and they’ll replace it free of charge.

Mechanic’s Tool Set – A good place to start is to get a robust mechanic’s tool kit that has a wide variety of tools: hammer, screwdrivers, sockets, drill bits, pliers, etc. Mark keeps his in the truck so he doesn’t have to go digging for a tool in the basement when something comes up as we drive.

Socket Set – This particular set includes both SAE and metric sizes as well as 1/4 and 3/8 inch drives.

Wrench Set – A robust set like this one includes wrenches of every size in both metric and SAE. Some sets skip certain sizes, so verify that you’ll be getting all the sizes you need. This set can also be rolled up in its fabric case so it’s easy to carry and store.

Adjustable Wrenches – A big one and a small one will do the trick.

Screwdriver Set – Be sure to include both Phillips head and flat head screwdrivers. Want more variety? here is a bigger set.

Screwdriver #2 Square Head – Many RVs are built with things that require a #2 square head screwdriver. We use ours all the time!

Basic Pliers Set – This set includes channel locks and needle nose along with regular pliers. This bigger set has more variety.

Hand Saw – You might need to cut some lumber (we have!)

Hack Saw – You might need to cut some metal pipe (we have!)

Folding Saw – Sometimes we use this saw to cut back overhanging branches at our campsite.

Telescoping Inspection Mirror – With some projects it’s super difficult to see into the deep recesses of where you’re working. A telescoping mirror makes it possible to see the backs of things and around corners.

Telescoping Magnet Tool – If you drop that vital nut down into an impossible to reach spot, you can retrieve it with this nifty tool.

Measuring Tape – Handy if you need to measure something.

Level – Handy if you want something to be level or square.

Kneeling Pad – When you’re working on something low, it really helps to have a kneeling pad to cushion your knees. Mark uses his all the time!

CORDLESS POWER TOOLS for an RV TOOL KIT

Cordless Tools

Several companies make a suite of cordless power tools that all use the same battery pack. If possible, stick to one brand to avoid storing a variety of battery packs and chargers (although we’ve ended up with a mix ourselves!).

Ryobi, Rigid, DeWalt, Milwaukee and Makita all make sets of tools based on their battery packs and are good reliable brands. However, each brand offers a different suite of tools. The products linked to here are all Ryobi which we like a lot. We keep two battery packs on hand so we can be using one while the other is charging…or use both at the same time!

Cordless Drill – We not only use ours for standard drilling purposes, but we also use it to raise and lower our landing jacks. We did this on our full-timing fifth wheel and now on our toy hauler. Both trailers came with manual landing jacks. To set up our drill for this purpose we put a 1/4 to 3/8 socket adapter in the chuck and attach an 8 inch extension and a 3/4 inch deep socket with 3/8 drive.

Drill Bit Set – There are bigger kits, but this is a good basic selection.

Cordless Screwdriver – This little gem is fabulous and saves your wrists if you have a lot of screwing and unscrewing to do.

Cordless Screwdriver Hex Bits – These are super handy to use in the cordless screwdriver if you have a lot of bolts to tighten.

Cordless Tire Inflator Air Compressor – This tire inflator can inflate all kinds of tires (Schrader valve) and basketballs too! We use it to inflate the air bags on our Reese Goose Box.

Cordless Dust Blower – After driving our side-by-side, we use this to blow the dust off ourselves. It can inflate air mattresses too.

Work Light – A super bright light that can be hung right over your work area makes it much easier to see what you’re doing.

Hand Vacuum – RV floor space and storage space is so limited that we prefer to use a hand vac instead of a stand-up vacuum.

Flashlight – You can never have too many flashlights. This one is a good all around bright light in a modest size that Mark uses every day.

TOOLS & SUPPLIES FOR RV ELECTRICAL WORK

For Electrical Work

Multimeter – This is critical for anything and everything electrical. If you want to test what’s going on in a specific location, a clamp-on meter can be placed around a wire and you’ll see the current at that spot.

Aligator Test Clip Leads – Vital for troubleshooting problems

Heat Shrink Butt Connector Kit – This suitcase style kit has marine grade butt connectors from 22 to 10 AWG and comes with a heat shrink tool and crimper. Mark lovs this kit!

Black Electrical Tape – Scotch is a good brand for electrical tapes. Cheaper brands are a waste of money. Get the good stuff!

Colored Electrical Tape – Same as the above but for cases where you want to color code your work.

TOOLS & SUPPLIES FOR RV PLUMBING & GAS WORK

For Plumbing & Gas

PVC Pipe Cutter – It’s really hard to cut PVC without one of these, and they also cut the blue and red PEX water lines with ease.

Tubing Cutter – Use this to cut copper pipe (we used it when installing our vent-free propane heater)

Teflon Tape – Blue Monster is the best brand of teflon tape. We learned about it from a plumber, and Mark has never gone back to the brands he used to use!

TOOLS FOR CHANGING A TIRE

In case of a flat!

Heavy Duty Lug Wrench — To screw and unscrew the lug nuts on the wheel

Hydraulic Bottle Jack — Get one strong enough to lift your RV or your truck.

18” Breaker Bar — If the Lug Wrench can’t crack the lug nuts loose, a breaker bar and deep impact socket will do the trick. Then switch to the Lug Wrench to finish screwing or unscrewing the lug nut.

Deep Impact Socket — Works with the breaker bar. Match the size of the socket to the lug nuts on your vehicle’s wheels

1/2 inch Drive 10 inch Socket Extension — Necessary to change the inner rear wheel on a dually truck (Mark demonstrates that HERE!).

Flat Tire Repair Kit – It may be possible to patch the tire rather than use the spare.

Fix a flat – When all else fails, it doesn’t hurt to have a can on hand!

Small compressor – Get that baby pumped up!

Tire Pressure Gauge – It’s important to check the tire pressure!

TAPE & FASTENERS

Tape & Fasteners

Gorilla Tape — All purpose super sticky tape that can attach virtually anything to anything

Alien Tape — Thick double-sided tape that is great for mounting things

Velcro Extreme Mounting Tape – Excellent for mounting things you’ll remove at some point (like clocks that need batteries).

WORK GLOVES

Hand Protection

Leather Gloves – Protect your hands when doing heavy lifting

RV Dump Gloves – Disposable Nitrile gloves are great protection while doing the dirty deed at the RV dump.

Cut-Resistant Work Gloves – Protect your hands when dealing with sharp metal parts and tools

Are there tools in your RV tool kit that you depend on and that we’ve missed here? Please list them in the comments below!

Check out all of these essential tools under “RV Tool Kit” in our online Gear Store HERE. Or click the image below to see our basic RV tool kit plus all the other goodies we’ve put on the shelves!

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Goldline RV Cover – Winter protection for our new trailer!
Dirty Little Secrets from the RV Dump Station – RV Dumping Tips + Composting Toilets
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How to Fix a Car or Truck Key Fob in Minutes!

Posted on May 4, 2023 by Roads Less Traveled

Vehicle key fobs are insanely expensive, but when ours died, we found out how to fix a car or truck key fob in just a few minutes…for next to nothing! What a relief (and surprise) it was to get our key fob working again rather than buying a new one!

How to fix a car or truck key fob in minutes!

Our car key fob died a slow death. First it couldn’t open the doors while standing or approaching the car on the passenger’s side. Then the problem migrated to the driver’s side too. Ugh!

We tried standing closer to the car and further away. We tried holding the key fob higher in the air, holding it lower, and aiming it in different directions. We opened the car key fob up and cleaned all the electrical contacts and changed the battery. But it was all to no avail. Nothing we tried would make the car key fob work reliably, and eventually the key fob stopped working all together.

The only way to unlock the car was to use the key, and the only key lock on the whole car was located on the driver’s door.

Oh my! Talk about inconvenience! Now we had to walk up to the driver’s side door to unlock all the doors and then walk all the way around the car to the other side if we wanted to access the seats on the passenger’s side! How on earth did our moms live without remote car key fobs in their day, what with bunches of kids running around, carrying groceries and all?

We didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to get a new key fob, so we dug around on the internet and found a really easy fix!

All that was required was an ordinary paper hole punch, a strip of aluminum foil, some tweezers and some glue! And we had these things already!

What happens with some key fobs as they age is that the electrical contacts under the buttons on the shell of the fob wear away. The idea with this fix is to replace that conductive material with a tiny piece of aluminum foil.

Our key fob has three buttons: Lock, Unlock and Trunk. So, we punched out 3 holes in the aluminum foil and set the small round pieces aside.

How to fix a car or truck key fob using aper hole punch and aluminum foil

Using an ordinary paper hole punch, punch 3 holes in a piece of aluminum foil and keep the tiny round pieces.

Then we removed the little electronic board from the key fob and, using a toothpick, put a tiny dab of glue on the rubber at each of the three contact points under the key fob buttons. Then, delicately holding each piece of aluminum foil with tweezers, we placed the foil on the three contact points in the key fob. We made sure to use just enough glue to hold each piece in place without affecting the connectivity between the electrical contact and the aluminum foil.

Car key fob opened up with the electrical contacts exposed

Glue the pieces of aluminum foil onto the electrical contact points in the key fob.

How to fix a car or truck key fob using a hole punch and aluminum foil

Closer view: aluminum foil pieces glued on contact points in the key fob.

We put the car key fob back together again, and BINGO!! The key fob worked perfectly locking and unlocking the doors and unlocking the trunk every single time, no matter where we stood or how high or low we held the darn thing!!

So…if you have a car or truck key fob that isn’t working right, even after changing the battery and cleaning the electrical contacts, grab a hole punch, some aluminum foil and some tweezers and try glueing the foil onto the contact points under the key fob buttons!

Not every vehicle key fob can be opened and repaired in this way, but you may be in luck just like we were!

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Demco 21K Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Review and Installation

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Roads Less Traveled

When we sold our Hitchhiker fifth wheel, which had been home-sweet-home for twelve of the thirteen years of our full-time RV adventure, we thought we’d never own a fifth wheel trailer again. So, we let our fifth wheel hitch go with the trailer as part of the sale.

Oops! Never say “Never!”

After trying Truck Camper Vacation Life for a year, we realized we wanted a bigger RV, and we purchased a 2022 Genesis Supreme 28CRT fifth wheel toy hauler for extended travels and shorter getaways.

Suddenly, we needed a hitch so we could tow our new trailer home from the seller’s storage lot! Enter the Demco Recon 21k Fifth Wheel Hitch!

Demco 21K Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Review and Installation

This is a detailed article. Here are shortcut links to each section:

Demco Recon 21k Hitch

We’ve owned two fifth wheel hitches over the years. The first was a Pullrite traditional fifth wheel hitch that was installed permanently on rails mounted under the bed of our 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 single rear wheel truck. This rail-mounted hitch design had been an industry standard for fifth wheel hitches for many years. We used it for 7 years.

Our second hitch was a B&W Ram OEM fifth wheel hitch. This new style hitch used the Dodge Ram OEM factory installed pucks that came with our 2016 Ram 3500 dually to mount the hitch to the truck bed. The four corners of the hitch base were secured into the four pucks by turning each puck handle a quarter turn. The hitch could be removed from the truck just as easily simply by turning the four puck handles, a game changer! We used that hitch for 5 years.

We loved being able to install and remove the B&W hitch at a moment’s notice, even though it had a big, beefy base that was a little bit of a challenge for one person to manage alone. So, when we went hitch shopping, we wanted our new hitch to be equally mobile but a bit lighter, if at all possible.

01 771 Genesis Supreme 28CRT toy hauler towed by Ram 3500 dually truck with Demco 21K Recon fifth wheel hitch

Our first stop on our 16 week maiden voyage!

One of the shortcomings of any OEM puck system fifth wheel hitch is that the three diesel pickup manufacturers, Ford, GM and Dodge, have all designed their own unique footprints for the placement of their pucks in their pickup beds. This means that an OEM hitch designed for a Ram truck will not work in a Chevy or Ford and vice versa.

As we contemplated which hitch to get for our new toy hauler, we knew that there might come a day fairly soon when we would want to replace our current truck. Of course, that may never happen, especially given the weird state of the car and truck market today, but it has been on our minds for a while.

So, our hitch requirements boiled down to these two:

Could be easily installed in or removed from the bed of any brand or age of truck
Would be comprised of components light and small enough for one person to maneuver alone

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch – A Gooseneck Ball Mounted Hitch!

We discovered that the Demco 21k Recon fifth wheel hitch is mounted on a gooseneck ball in a gooseneck receiver in the truck bed. Gooseneck receivers come standard with all OEM puck systems and can also be installed as an after-market addition in any truck that doesn’t have an OEM puck system.

The beauty of this hitch design is that the Demco 21k Recon fifth wheel hitch can be used in any brand or age of truck. This took care of Requirement #1 in our new hitch wish list!

Like the OEM puck system fifth wheel hitches, the Demco 21k Recon fifth wheel hitch is installed in two basic parts: a base that installs onto a gooseneck ball mounted in the gooseneck receiver in the pickup bed, and a hitch head which mounts onto the base and latches onto the kingpin of the fifth wheel trailer.

The Base unit for the Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch

The hitch head can be further broken down into two parts: the actual hitch head itself and a center column that inserts into the base. These two parts can be installed and removed separately, which adds a step to the process but keeps each individual part quite lightweight. Or they can be handled as a single and slightly heavier unit.

Upright Centerl Column Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch

The Center Column (or “Upright”) that supports the hitch head.

The hitch head for the Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel

I called Demco to talk to a salesperson about the hitch and get some details about the sizes and weights of the individual components.

And I was absolutely floored when an operator answered the phone on the second ring and immediately transferred me to a salesman who picked right up and greeted me warmly.

How often does THAT happen nowadays?

We were delighted to find that the total weight of the hitch and the weights and physical dimensions of the individual components were slightly less than other manufacturers’ OEM puck based hitches. That took care of Requirement #2 in our hitch wish list!

But back to that phone call… In a fifth wheel towing setup, the fifth wheel hitch is one of the most important pieces of equipment to ensure you get down the road safely. For us, it is reassuring to have the company behind the product be easy to reach by phone without having to listen to endless lists of menu selections, punch in endless numbers and wind up leaving a voicemail in some unmonitored voicemail box anyway. In the RV industry today, most brands are owned by massive umbrella corporations. It is rare to find an independent manufacturer that is not a subsidiary of a massive corporation.

Demco Recon 21k Fifth Wheel Hitch Specifications:

Rated to tow a 21,000 lb. trailer. Our toy hauler has a GVWR of 15,000 lbs which is well within the limit.
Mounts onto a standard 4″ tall 2 5/16 gooseneck ball.
Total Hitch Weight: 134 lbs.

The component weights are:

Head Weight: 35.75 lbs.
Center Column Weight: 20 lbs.
Base Weight: 78.25 lbs.

If the Center Column and Base remain connected as a single unit, the weights of the two components are:

Head Weight: 35.75 lbs.
Center Column + Base Weight: 98.25 lbs

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Installation

The installation proved to be straight forward. As mentioned above, the hitch has three main components:

The Base which is installed on a gooseneck ball in the truck bed
The Center Column which slides into the Base and sets the overall height of the hitch
The Head which mounts on the Center Column and whose jaw latches onto the trailer’s kingpin.

The parts included the following:

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Base and Base Parts

The Base, the Center Column Upright and some pins.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Head Handle and Parts

The Head, hitch handle and bolt, and a blue urethane pivot bumper.

Tools Required for Installation

Installing the Base

The gooseneck coupler (or socket) on the underside of the Base slips over the gooseneck ball in the bed of the truck.

If you flip over the Base, you can see that the coupler is slilghtly offest from the center of the Base. The coupler location is offset to accommodate the Center Column which stands directly in the center of the Base (for balanced support) and holds the Hitch Head.

Demco 21K Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch underside of the Base

On the underside of the Base you can see the gooseneck ball socket is offset from center.

When the hitch is installed in the truck bed, the gooseneck ball coupler is positioned towards the cab of the truck.

The Base is secured to the gooseneck ball in the truck bed by sliding the Coupler Pin through the hole in the square column at the bottom of the Base. By tightening the Top Coupler Bolt nut on the top of the Base to 30 ft-lbs, the Coupler Pin is cinched up against the Base, clamping the Base and gooseneck ball together into the bed of the truck. A very clever design!

Before getting to that step, however, the Top Coupler Bolt on the Base was loosened so the gooseneck ball coupler would slide over the gooseneck ball easily. We did this before placing the hitch in the truck bed.

Unbolt collar Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

The Bolt Retainer Assembly was removed and the Top Coupler Bolt was loosened so the hitch Base could slip over the gooseneck ball in the truck bed.

Remove bolt retainer assembly Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

The Bolt Lock Plate was removed.

The Top Coupler Bolt was loosened.

Then the Base was placed in the bed of the truck with the Gooseneck Ball Coupler sliding over the Gooseneck ball. As you can see, when the hitch is removed from the truck, the entire bed of the truck is open except for the small bump of the gooseneck ball. You can haul things in the truck or just drive around peacefully without a fifth wheel hitch clanking around in the back (especially helpful when driving on rutted dirt roads)!

The gooseneck ball was ready and waiting in the pickup bed.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Base in Truck Bed

The hitch Base was mounted onto the gooseneck ball. The footprint of the Base is contained well inside the four OEM pucks which makes it both lighter and less awkward to maneuver than a larger OEM fifth wheel hitch base.

In order to secure the Base into the bed of the truck, the Coupler Pin was inserted into the Coupler Hole on the Base below the round head of the gooseneck ball. Then the nut on the Top Coupler Bolt was tightened to 30 ft-lbs using a torque wrench and 15/16 socket.

Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch Ready for torque

The Top Coupler Bolt cinches the Coupler Pin under the Gooseneck Ball up against the Base frame, securing the hitch Base onto the ball.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Top bolt

The Top Coupler Bolt is tightened to 30 ft-lbs.

The Bolt Lock Plate was placed over the Top Coupler Bolt head and then tightened the adjacent 1/4″ bolt with a 7/16 socket. The Bolt Retainer assembly blocks the Top Coupler Bolt from turning.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Notched Bolt Lock Plate

The Bolt Lock Plate slides over the Top Coupler Bolt and is held in place with a 1/4 inch bolt to prevent the Top Coupler Bolt from unscrewing.

Notched bolt lock plate aligns correctly flipped over

The Bolt Lock Plate goes over the Top Coupler Bolt.

The Bolt Retainer Assembly was secured using a 7/16 socket on the 1/4 inch bolt.

Installing the Center Column

Next, the Center Column was placed into the square opening in the Base.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Inserting Center Column in the Base

The Center Column was placed in the square opening in the Base.

The Center Column can be positioned at one of three different heights that are 1 1/4 inches apart. The height of the Center Column determines the vertical distance between the bottom of the fifth wheel overhang and the top of the truck box. Demco recommends that this distance should be about 6 inches.

The middle height looked like it would be the best choice, so we placed the Cross Pin through the center hole in the Center Column. The Cross Pin was secured with an R-clip.

Hitch head height Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

The Cross Pin is inserted in the middle hole in the Center Column

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Cotter Pin

An R-clip secures the other end of the Cross Pin.

Two set screws hold the Center Column in place in the Base. Using a 3/4 inch 12 point socket, the set screws were tightened to Demco’s recommended spec of 100 ft-lbs of torque. Then the jam nuts were tightened using a 15/16 inch deep well socket.

12 point socket Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

The two set screws holding the Center Column in place were tightened to 100 ft-lbs with a 3/4 inch 12 point socket. The jam nuts were tightened with a 15/16/ deep well socket.

721 Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Torque to 100 ft-lbs

The Set Screws were tightened to 100 ft-lbs with a torque wrench.

Installing the Head

Flipping the head over, the blue Urethane Pivot Bumper was placed on the bottom of the Head. This quiets the hitch when you aren’t towing.

Dampening bumper for hitch head 27 721 Hitch head pin Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

To minimize noise when not towing, a urethane pivot bumper dampens the movement of the hitch head.

Dampening bumper for hitch head Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

Then the Head was placed onto the Base, and a 1 inch Pin was slid through it to hold it in place. The 1″ Pin was secured with a Lynch Pin.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Installing the Center Column

The hitch Head was set onto the Base.

Hitch head pin Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

A 1″ pin held it in place.

Demco 21k Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch D-Ring on Center Column

The 1″ pin was secured by a Lynch Pin.

Then the Hitch Handle was assembled. A Safety Lock Pin held the handle in place while the bolt was tightened. A light coat of White Lithium Grease was applied between the Safety Lock Pin hole and the handle housing.

Hitch handle Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

The Safety Lock Pin held the handle open so the bolt on the handle could be tightened.

Lube hitch handle Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch

A light coat of White Lithium Grease lubricated the hitch handle.

That was it!

Genesis Supreme 28CRT Toy Hauler Fifth Wheel towed using a Demco 21K Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch

Ready for new travel adventures!

Hitching and Unhitching

There are many different mechanisms used for locking a fifth wheel hitch’s jaws around a kingpin. The jaws of the Demco Recon hitch wrap completely around the kingpin. This 360 degree wrap makes a very tight seal around the kingpin and helps reduce chucking when towing, which we loved.

Demco 21K 5th Wheel Hitch has a wraparound locking jaw

The Demco 21K Recon fifth wheel hitch has a very tight wrap-around jaw that minimizes chucking.

However, the hitch’s tight wrap-around jaw also makes the process of hitching and unhitching a little bit more finicky.

Demco provides two brief videos that show the process of hitching up and unhitching (“coupling and uncoupling”) in action (click here and here).

These are well worth watching to get a feeling for the relative positions of the hitch head and the king pin. The videos are for Demco’s rail mounted fifth wheel hitch, but the positioning of the components is identical to the Demco 21k Recon gooseneck ball hitch.

Demco also recommends using wheel chocks for both hitching and unhitching operations. We weren’t accustomed to using wheel chocks, but we found they made a huge difference in easing the fifth wheel’s king pin into and out of the Demco hitch while preventing the trailer from rolling slightly.

Wheel chocks are recommended when hitching and unhitching with this hitch.

The Demco 21K Recon hitch also requires that the fifth wheel’s landing jacks be lowered slightly below where they would be with other hitches.

We found that as we were hitching up, the trailer king pin’s lube plate needed to be positioned slightly lower than the hitch plate. The truck would squat a bit once the trailer was hitched up. Eyeballing across the lube plate and hitch head, the lube plate needed to be coming at the hitch about halfway up the little lip on the edge of the hitch head.

When unhitching, there needed to be just a slight hairline crack of light showing between the king pin’s lube plate and the hitch plate. Since our truck has a factory installed auto-leveling system, we’ve found we need to wait until the truck bed has completely stopped raising or lowering and then see if a hairline crack of light is visible betwen the lube plate and the hitch plate.

For unhitching, Demco provides a Safety Lock Pin to hold the hitch handle open until the truck has pulled out completely. We found we needed to use this Lock Pin whenever we unhitched or the handle would close on its own before the truck had pulled out completely.

Demco 21K 5th wheel hitch with handle open for unhitching

The Safety Lock Pin holds the hitch handle open while unhitching.

We also stabilized our Rota-Flex pin box with an Andersen Rota-Flex lockout kit as Demco recommended. Because both the Rota-Flex pin box and the Demco hitch are mobile in multiple directions, the two can end up working against each other. One will move in one direction and then the other will compensate for that motion in a counterproductive way. The Anderson Rota-Flex lockout kit prevents the pin box from moving at all, allowing the Demco hitch to make all the movements necessary to hitch up or unhitch.

After using the Anderson Rota-Flex lockout kit for a few thousands miles during our trip, we removed it and found that we didn’t really need it. So, if your trailer has a Rota-Flex king pin, you might try using the Demco hitch without the lockout kit first and purchase the lockout kit only if you are having trouble hitch and unhitching.

Towing

Underway, we have found that when suddenly accelerating or braking hard, or turning a sharp corner or starting a steep climb or descent, the hitch sometimes clunks loudly as it adjusts to the change in motion.

However, although we’ve taken the trailer over some very rough terrain and deeply pot-holed dirt roads, we’ve found the motion of the trailer has been surprisingly smooth. This absence of chucking is due to the very tight fit of the wraparound jaws encircling the king pin and is a wonderful feature.

After about 1,000 miles of towing, the shaft of the Center Column began to wobblie slightly. Interestingly, the set screws hadn’t come loose by unscrewing themselves because the two jam nuts were still tight. Probably the set screws had worn away a little metal on the shaft from all the jiggling as we went down the road. We didn’t have our torque wrench with us, so Mark tightened the two set screws as hard as he could and they never loosened again.

After 4,000 miles of towing, we noticed that the hitch base had twisted very slightly in the truck bed, about 5 degrees of rotation. This was due to the hitch being secured to the truck in just one location in the center, by compression on the gooseneck ball, rather than being connected in four corners like an OEM or traditional hitch. With the hitch slightly twisted in the truck bed, it was harder to slide the king pin in and out of the jaws while hitching and unhitching. We straightened the hitch and tightened it down again and it hasn’t twisted since.

One of our readers left a comment below suggesting that we try putting a rubber horse mat (sold at farm and feed stores) in the bed of the truck under the hitch with a hole in it for the gooseneck ball. This would provide some friction that might prevent rotation and would also protect the bed of the truck.

Demco 21K Recon 5th Wheel Hitch rotated in the bed of the truck

After 4,000 miles of towing we noticed the hitch had rotated slightly in the truck bed. We realigned and retightened the hitch and it hasn’t rotated again.

Portability

The three components of this hitch are slightly lighter than some of the OEM puck system hitch counterparts, and the Base has a smaller footprint too, so it is less awkward to load into and unload from the truck bed than other hitch bases.

Mark can lift the Base in and out of the truck easily by himself. Of course, it is even easier with a second pair of hands and I happily jump in to help! The other two components, the Center Column and Head, are easily lifted and maneuvered by one person, even me.

That said, if you choose to keep the Center Column attached to the Base after the initial installation, which saves you from loosening and re-tightening the two set screw bolts on the Base to torque spec, then two people may be required to lift that Base/Center Column combined unit in and out of the truck.

Overall Impressions

The three great benefits of the Demco 21k Recon fifth wheel hitch are that it is:

Compatible with any pickup truck
Easily installed and removed by one person
Almost free of chucking when towing

The process of hitching and unhitching is a little different than with other fifth wheel hitches but is easily mastered (it took us a while to realize we had been doing it wrong!). The hitch also required two small adjustments after we had used it for a few thousand miles, but our adjustments have held since we made them.

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More info about this hitch:

Other fifth wheel trailer hitches we’ve installed and reviewed:

B&W OEM Fifth Wheel Hitch - Installation and Review
Reese Goose Box - Review

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Mexican Dentists - Are the Dentists in Mexico any good? Just how cheap are they? Here are our PERSONAL experiences.
How An RV Warranty Saved Our Bacon - Literally! - One repair on our RV practically paid for our RV Extended Warranty
Still Smiling After 3 Days at the RV Repair Shop - Why? Our RV Warranty put us $2,000 ahead of the game!
5th Wheel Suspension Replacement - When our trailer's suspension failed, we $aved $$$ Thousands getting it replaced.
RV Toilet Replacement - Our RV toilet quit flushing (ugh!) but our RV warranty saved us again. Now we're $6,700 ahead!

FULL-TIME RV LIFESTYLE

RV Boondocking - Tips for how to live in an RV off the grid
Which RV Is Best for Full-Time Living? - Transitioning from a house to an RV - Which RV makes the best home?
Truck Camper Pros and Cons - The GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY!
Full-time RV Lifestyle Tips - Full-time RVing Logistics - Mail, Domicile, Insurance, Warranties, Saving Money at RV Parks
Toy Hauler Life - What's it like to live in an OPEN BOX Toy Hauler?
What are the MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES in a Full-time Fifth Wheel? - For anyone planning to live in an RV!
Internet & Phone Access for RVers - An inexpensive, minimalist solution for internet access on the road
RV Dump Stations & Composting Toilets - How to do the dirty deed at the RV dump PLUS RV Composting Toilet tips
Choosing a Trailer for Full-time RVing - Why the payload capacity is so important
Learn RVing the Fun Way!! - Go Cheap, Go Small, Go NOW and have a blast in little RV!
Free RV Campsites - Resources for locating campsites for boondocking
Glimpses of the Full-time RV Life - Anecdotes from the road and essays about living the RV dream.
Travel Photography Tips! - All the cameras, gear, books, blogs and tools we used to learn to take great pics!

GEAR STORE

Gear Store - A list of the goodies, equipment and gear we've found useful in our RV lifestyle!

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Amp’d Throttle Booster Installation and Review

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Roads Less Traveled

August 2018 – We absolutely love our 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 Dually truck, and we recently installed an Amp’d Throttle Booster on it. This small electronic unit decreases the occasional throttle lag you feel when you depress the accelerator pedal by increasing the throttle sensitivity and responsiveness.

Amp’d Throttle Booster Installation and Review

On older vehicles the accelerator was connected to the carburetor with a cable, providing a physical connection between the action of your foot depressing the accelerator and fuel flowing to the engine to make the vehicle go faster. On newer vehicles electronic signals do the job instead, and occasionally there is a slight lag between depressing the accelerator and fuel flowing to the engine. This is sometimes referred to as a “dead pedal” kind of sensation, and it can be a little frustrating to hit the gas and not have the vehicle jump in response right away.

The Amp’d Throttle Booster allows you to increase the throttle sensitivity by slightly raising the voltage. There are three sensitivity settings along with a Stock setting that doesn’t increase the voltage at all.

Edge Amp’d Throttle Booster

The Amp’d Throttle Booster core unit

The Amp’d Throttle Booster is a small product that comes in two parts: the booster unit itself and a wiring harness.

The harness assembly has three ends:

One end that connects to a selector switch that gets mounted on the dashboard (labeled “A” in the photo).
One end that connects to the booster (“B”).
One end that has a Y connection that connects to two points under the dashboard (“C”).

Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster cable harness assembly-min

The wiring harness has three ends.
A = Dashboard mounted selector switch
B = Connects to the Amp’d Throttle Booster unit
C = Both connectors connect under the dashboard.

The installation took 17 minutes, but allow a little bit more for reading the manual, etc!

The first step was to connect the pair of connectors at the Y end of the wiring harness to the corresponding connectors under the dashboard. These two connectors are keyed, so you can’t connect them backwards or accidentally plug them into the wrong spots.

Working under the dashboard was a tight fit, so I have a link to the Amp’d Throttle Booster manual at the end of this article to give you the nitty gritty about each connector and where it is positioned under the dashboard both for the Ram trucks and for other brands and model years.

Installing the Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster_-min

First connect one of the two ends of the Y on the wiring harness to the corresponding connector under the dashboard.

Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster wiring harness installation-min

Connect the second of the two connectors at the Y end of the wiring harness under the dashboard.

Both connectors are in place (only one is visible).

Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster wiring harness assembly-min

It’s tight under there but the connectors are keyed to make it easier.

We got the kit that includes the dashboard mounted selector switch. If you don’t buy this external switch there is a switch right on the circuit board inside the Amp’d Throttle Booster unit that has two sensitivity settings, Low and High.

Regardless of whether you get the dashboard mounted selector switch or rely on the circuit board switch instead, the next step is to set up the Amp’d Throttle Booster so it can learn the throttle response of your truck’s accelerator.

To begin this learning sequence (and to access the circuit board’s selector switch), simply unscrew the outer casing.

Opening up the Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster-min

Access the Amp’d Throttle Booster circuit board and go through the Learn sequence by removing the outer casing.

Circuit board inside the Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster-min-min

The red arrow shows the location of the circuit board selector switch. It is set to Stock (Off).

Then attach the wiring assembly to the connector on the Amp’d Throttle Booster unit and follow the sequence of steps given in the manual to enable the throttle booster to learn the throttle response of the truck’s accelerator (this involves depressing the accelerator pedal a few times and monitoring some LED flashing lights on the circuit board).

Plug the wiring harness into the Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster-min

Plug the wiring harness into the connector on the Amp’d Throttle Booster unit.

Then mount the selector switch on the dashboard. One handy location is on the plastic tab at the bottom of the dashboard that holds the dashboard in place. Simply remove the existing screw, position the mounting bracket and screw it back in.

Use tiewrap to mount Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster on dashboard-min

Mount the selector switch on the dashboard and tidy up the wiring harness with tie wraps before tucking it under the dashboard.

Once it’s mounted, tuck the harness assembly and the Amp’d Throttle Booster unit up under the dashboard and secure them in place with zip-ties.

Edge Amp'd Throttle Booster installed on Dodge Ram 3500 diesel truck dashboard-min

Finished. The selector switch is easy for the driver to reach.

After the installation of the Amp’d Throttle Booster, Mark tested it with the truck in Park. He put the selector switch to Stock (Off) and revved the engine. The he did the same thing at each of the three settings: Low (50% sensitivity increase), Medium (75% increase) and High (100% increase). At each increased setting the engine responded faster to his foot depressing the accelerator pedal — as expected.

Mark has been driving with the Amp’d Throttle Booster installed on the truck for the last 5,000 miles, and he’s found he likes it best at the High setting (100% increase) which is where he keeps it set all the time.

He finds he notices the improvement a lot when passing people and also when driving in the mountains as well as when he’s in stop-and-go traffic.

Without the booster he sometimes finds that on a steep incline or when “gassing it” for whatever reason, he’ll depress the accelerator and then have a moment or two of no response from the engine before it kicks in. With the booster on High, the truck reacts and accelerates much more quickly.

We also have an Edge Juice with Attitude engine tuner on the truck, and Mark finds that the two work together well. He puts the engine tuner in Level 2 (Towing) and leaves it there most of the time. This improves the engine’s power when it’s towing our trailer.

Whenever we’re going to be driving the truck without the trailer attached for a long drive or for a few days of in-town driving, then he puts the tuner in Level 1 (Economy). This improves the fuel economy significantly.

Our truck has about 35,000 miles on it now, and we’ve owned it for two and a half years . For anyone wondering how many miles they might drive in the full-time RV lifestyle, there you have it — we’ve averaged 14,000 miles a year since January 2016, about half of that towing our trailer and half of that driving without our trailer hitched up.

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More info about the Amp’d Throttle Booster:

At Amazon: The Amp’d Throttle Booster for Ram, Ford & Chevy diesel trucks
Product Info by Vehicle Make/Model
Amp’d Throttle Booster Manual

Other blog posts related to trucks and towing:

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RV Mountain Driving: How to drive your RV safely on mountain roads

Posted on September 14, 2017 by Roads Less Traveled

It was a steep climb to get to this gorgeous spot in Flaming Gorge, Utah.

For us one of the best things about the RVing lifestyle is seeing all the spectacular scenery that North America has to offer. But getting there often involves driving over scary mountain passes. We are far from experts, but here are a few things we’ve learned about how to get up and over the mountains:

Get familiar with the mountain pass in advance

The book Mountain Directory West for Truckers, RV and Motorhome Drivers is a terrific resource. Every mountain pass in the west is described in detail, including grades, turns, how many miles you will drive at each grade and whether the road has steep drop-offs or wide shoulders and other helpful info. This book (and its companion eastern states edition) is available in a print edition or as an eBook.

Steepness is described in terms of grades: 5% grades are not bad; 10% grades are very steep. The tightness of the switchback turns are described by the speed limit: 25 mph turns are a bit tight; 15 mph turns are very tight.

Once you’ve got a handle on the nature of the pass you’re considering, it also helps to get some first-hand feedback from drivers who’ve done it. As we travel we often ask locals about upcoming roads that concern us. Folks at visitors centers, chambers of commerce, local stores and libraries can give you a sense of what the drive is like, and this will help you decide whether you want to tackle the climb.

For the steepest climbs and most scary seeming roads, we driving the road in our truck without the trailer first. Then we know exactly what to expect when we drive it with our trailer attached!

Ascending: Keep the engine cool

At the bottom of a big pass, even if it’s a hot day, we turn off the air conditioning. If the pass is a long one, we also turn on the heat — full blast — to draw heat off the engine. This is tough on the passengers on hot summer days but keeps the engine happy.

Overheating: Pull over and let it idle

If you need to pull over to let the engine cool down, keep it idling so it can continue to circulate anti-freeze through the radiator. The electric fan should kick on to circulate air through the radiator as well. You can also turn the heater on with the fan on high to help draw more heat off the engine even faster.

Descending: Use the exhaust brake, drop down a gear or even switch to 4×4 Low

Depressing and letting off the gas pedal will engage the exhaust brake. If the descent is steep, dropping into 2nd gear will slow the vehicle down further. If it is very steep, switching into 4×4 Low and driving in 1st gear can slow the rig to 5 mph and make it possible to creep down a crazy steep mountain in a controlled fashion. We’ve done it and it works!!

As I mentioned, we aren’t experts, but these few simple things have made a big difference for us.

Good luck with your mountain driving, and don’t be afraid to take the scenic route, even if it involves some steep climbs and descents!

New to this site? Check out RVing Lifestyle and Tech Tips at the top of the page for detailed info about installing a vent-free propane heater, living the full-time RV lifestyle, how to go boondocking, the costs of full-time RVing and more. Please visit our Home page and Welcome page for RVers to learn more about us and discover all the other good stuff available to you on this blog.

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B&W Companion Hitch Performance in a Fifth Wheel Trailer Rollover Accident

Posted on May 3, 2017 by Roads Less Traveled

The April 2017 issue of Trailer Life magazine featured our article on the new Companion OEM fifth wheel hitch from B&W Trailer Hitches. Ironically, just as that issue came out, a reader emailed us the harrowing tale of his recent fifth wheel trailer rollover accident.

Trailer Life Magazine Latch and Release B&W Companion OEM Fifth Wheel Hitch article

Trailer Life Magazine, April 2017.
Text and photos by Emily Fagan.
Installation by Mark Fagan and Mark Graika.

Like most RVers, we installed our hitch without giving much thought to rollover accidents, and we have been very happy with it.

The B&W Companion OEM fifth wheel hitch is special because it is designed to fit into the new puck sytems that the diesel truck manufacturers are now making available in the beds of their pickup trucks.

This makes it easy to install the hitch in the truck without having to take the truck to a shop.

Mark was able to install it in our truck with a friend’s help in about an hour, using minimal tools, and that included opening the boxes and reading the instructions. A step-by-step guide for how to install the B&W Companion OEM hitch are at this link:

B&W Companion OEM Hitch Installation Guide

The other fabulous thing about the B&W Companion OEM hitch is that not only is it easy to install but it is easy to remove from the truck.

Anytime you want to use the bed of your truck to haul something big like lumber, fire wood or furniture, it is a very straight forward process to take the hitch out of the truck.

The best part is that there are no hitch rails in the bed of the truck, so once the hitch is removed, the bed of the truck is totally flat.

These features are not part of the design of conventional fifth wheel hitches, like the conventional rails-based B&W Companion hitch (not an “OEM” model), so it’s a worthwhile to consider buying a truck with the optional puck system on it if you are considering buying a late model diesel truck.

When buying a truck/trailer combination, not only are the quality of the truck and trailer important, but the hitch is really important too, and not just for its ability to tow a heavy load…

We were shocked when full-time RVers Mark and Doran Gipson sent us photos of their terrifying rollover accident with their fifth wheel. They were towing their home, a 2007 32′ Hitchhiker Discover America fifth wheel, with a 2008 Dodge Ram 2500, and they were hitched together with B&W Companion hitch.

While driving at 60 mph on I-10 outside in El Paso in February, two very inconsiderate drivers suddenly cut them off in a series of swerves right in front of them.

Here is Mark’s description of what happened:

“We were going 60 mph and were cut off by two vehicles who decided to not exit on loop 375. They dove back into our lane within 2 car lengths. With no time to brake, I swerved to the inside lane only to have the second vehicle also move into that lane as well. I lost the trailer when I swerved back to miss the concrete median.”

The result was that the trailer went over on the driver’s side at 60 mph, slid 150 feet and hit its roof on the concrete median.

Hitchhiker trailer wheel trailer RV rollover accident

The Hitchhiker fifth wheel hit the pavement at 60 mph and slid 150 feet.
Most trailers would have splintered on impact.

Fortunately, as the trailer went over on its side, the B&W hitch — which comes in two pieces: a base on the bottom and a coupler on the top — separated in two. The coupler stayed attached to the trailer’s king pin as the trailer toppled over while the base stayed in the bed of the truck, allowing the truck to remain upright.

Hitchhiker fifith wheel trailer rollover accident with B&W fifth wheel hitch coupler still attached

The upper half of the fifth wheel hitch — the coupler — remained attached to the trailer
as it rolled over on the driver’s side.

So, while Mark and Doran came to a skidding stop in their truck, sitting upright in their seats, the trailer rolled over, detached and slid to a stop on its side.

Truck damage from fifth wheel trailer rollover accident

As the trailer went over, the fifth wheel overhang crushed the driver’s side of the truck bed.

If the truck had rolled over too, Mark and Doran could have easily been very badly injured or even killed. However, because the truck stayed upright, they walked away unscathed. Thank heavens!!

With the truck badly damaged and the trailer on its side on I-10, Mark called for help and a wrecking crew arrived. As he wrote to me:

“The wrecker driver came with two trucks and a trailer because he had not gotten to a 5th wheel rollover without the truck also on its side and the trailer in pieces. He said that it would collapse when he tried to pick it up. But he put it on its wheels and towed it to his shop and still can’t believe how well built it was.

“Things were tumbled around inside but we virtually lost none of our possessions.”

Fifth wheel trailer damage from RV rollover accident with Hitchhiker 5th wheel trailer

The wrecking crew righted the trailer and were amazed that it stood up just fine on its own wheels.
The damage to the trailer was cosmetic except for a roof rafter.

“We tested the slides and everything worked. The major damage was cosmetic on the side that slid and possibly a broken roof rafter where the AC unit came against the concrete barrier. Though everything was scrambled inside, nothing was broken. We lost almost nothing of our possessions including TV and computers.”

My husband Mark and I saw a trailer accident on the highway once, and the entire trailer was in splinters. That is what usually happens in trailer accidents and that’s why the wrecker driver arrived at the accident scene prepared to pick up a million pieces off the highway.

Hitchhiker fifth wheel trailer sustained little damage in 5th wheel trailer rollover accident

The wrecking crew expected the trailer to fall apart when it was righted, but it stood right up.
They towed it away on its own wheels just fine.

It is quite a testament to the way the Hitchhiker Discover America trailers were built that one could fall over on its side at 60 mph and still be intact with the slide-out mechanisms still functioning and only cosmetic damage on the side that skidded on the asphalt.

Unfortunately, Hitchhiker (NuWa Industries) stopped building fifth wheel trailers in 2013, but used models of all ages can still be found. Our blog posts from our visits to NuWa in Chanute, Kansas, can be found at the following links:

B&W Trailer Hitches is located just a few miles away from the NuWa plant (NuWa is now called Kansas RV Center) in Humboldt, Kansas, and we enjoyed a wonderful factory tour and a unique American heartland small town celebration that was sponsored in part by B&W Trailer Hitches two years ago (blog post here).

For Mark and Doran, the key to their truck staying upright during their rollover accident was the way the pivot arm on the base of the B&W Companion hitch bent sideways and let the coupler break free as the trailer toppled over.

Bent pivot arm on B&W fifth wheel hitch after 5th wheel trailer rollover accident

Looking forward towards the cab of the truck, the pivot arm on the driver’s side bent outwards allowing the coupler to break free (with some small broken parts inside) while the entire hitch base stayed planted in the bed of the truck. This kept the truck upright.

B&W fifth wheel hitch bent pivot arm after 5th wheel trailer rollover accident

Bent pivot arm on the fifth wheel hitch base.

It is impressive that the B&W hitch allowed for the hitch coupler and hitch base to separate completely once one of the pivot arms on the hitch base began to bend as the trailer went over. As the wrecker driver noted, usually both the truck and the trailer roll over together because once the trailer starts to go over the hitch forces the truck over too.

B&W Fifth wheel hitch coupler after trailer rollover accident

The coupler stayed attached to the trailer’s king pin.
In this photo it has been removed from the king pin and laid in the bed of the truck for inspection.

B&W Companion hitch coupler after rollover accident broken pieces inside

The coupler is flipped upside down here to reveal the broken pieces inside.

Broken pieces inside the B&W Companion fifth wheel hitch after a rollover accident

In the end, Mark and Doran decided to replace both their truck (a 2008 Dodge Ram 2500) and their trailer (a 2007 32′ Hitchhiker Discover America) as well as their slightly damaged B&W Companion hitch with a new set: a 2012 3500 Ram dually truck, 2012 36′ Hitchhiker Discover America and a new B&W Companion hitch!

We feel very blessed to have towed our fifth wheel trailer so many tens of thousands of miles and seen so many beautiful places in nearly 10 years of full-time travel. We’ve had our share of near misses, especially in our trip back east two years ago where traffic is blindingly fast on very crowded and confusing highways, and we’ve seen our share of accidents too.

One RV upgrade we did that has made a massive difference for us in dealing with sudden stops at high speed while towing our 36′ 14k lb. fifth wheel trailer was a trailer disc brake conversion where we upgraded from standard trailer drum brakes to electric over hydraulic disc brakes. This is a pricey upgrade, but one we highly recommend doing.

Hitchhiker fifth wheel RV with B&W Companion OEM fifth wheel hitch under sunny skies

RVing in a fifth wheel trailer is so much fun, especially in gorgeous places far from the open road.
But accidents do happen and good equipment — from truck to trailer, hitch and brakes — can make a huge difference in the outcome when things go wrong.

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Dodge Ram Truck Owners — Please note:
Late model Dodge Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500 trucks have been recalled (beginning 6/23/17) for side airbag problems in a rollover accident. See this article for details: Dodge Ram Side Airbag Recall

More about B&W Trailer Hitches:

B&W Companion OEM Hitch for Ford and “Slider” version for short bed Fords
B&W Companion OEM Hitch for Ram and “Slider” version for short bed Rams
B&W Companion OEM Hitch for GM
B&W Companion Hitch (on rails, no truck bed pucks required) and “Slider” version for short bed trucks

Other blog posts about trucks, trailers and hitches:

Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch
Demco 21K Recon Fifth Wheel Hitch Review and Installation
B&W Companion Hitch Performance in a Fifth Wheel Trailer Rollover Accident
How To Change The Inner Rear Tire on a Dually Truck
5th Wheel Trailer Suspension Failure – Replaced with our RV Warranty!
Choosing a Trailer for Full-time RVing: Cargo Carrying Capacity
How to Put DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) in a Truck & Which is Cheapest?
Go Cheap, Go Small, Go NOW!! Have Fun & LEARN in a Small RV
B&W Companion OEM Fifth Wheel Hitch Installation – Easy!
Dodge Ram 3500 Dually Truck – Best RV Fifth Wheel Trailer Towing
Alice Cooper Sells Us a New Truck!
RV Refrigerator Replacement – How an RV Warranty Saved Our Bacon!
Trailer Disc Brake Conversion – Electric Over Hydraulic Disc Brakes – WOW!
Edge Evolution CS Tuner Review – Peak Truck Performance!
2007 36′ Hitchhiker 5th Wheel Trailer for Full-Time RV Living
2005 Fleetwood Colonial Popup Camper
2007 Fleetwood Prowler Lynx 27′ Travel Trailer

More about Trailer Life Magazine:

Subscribe to Trailer Life – We subscribed for years when we first got started with RVing
Trailer Life magazine articles by Emily & Mark Fagan – Trailer Life has posted a few of our articles online

Our most recent posts:

Beehive Trail in Arizona – A “Mini Wave” hike by Lake Powell 07/19/24
Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch 06/27/24
Lake Powell – Heart of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area 05/10/24
Quick Release Pull Pins for Fifth Wheel Landing Jacks – YES! 05/03/24
Sheep May Safely Graze (in the Mountains with Dogs!) 04/26/24
More of our Latest Posts are in the MENU. New to this site? Visit RVers Start Here to find where we keep all the good stuff. Also check out our COOL NEW GEAR STORE!! *** CLICK HERE *** to see it!

Posted in RV & Boat Projects & Upgrades | Tagged New, Non-Travel, RV Tech Tips, RV Tech Tips Truck, RV Technical Topics, Truck Trailer Hitch | 10 Replies

How To Change The Inner Rear Tire on a Dually Truck

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Roads Less Traveled

28

One of the first questions we had when we began considering buying a new pickup truck to tow our fifth wheel trailer was: How do you change the inside rear tire on a dually truck? Well, a few days ago we found out!

We got a flat on our dually’s inside rear tire (passenger side) while towing our trailer — Oof!!.

Our 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 Dually has been a fabulous truck for us since we bought it six months ago, and we’ve now got 9,100 miles on it now, 4,633 miles towing and 4,467 miles driving around without our fifth wheel trailer attached.

A few days ago, we stopped at the Libby Dam on the Kootenay River in Montana to get a photo. As I walked around the back of the truck, I heard a weird hissing noise. I stuck my head into the wheel well, and my heart sank when I saw a huge bolt head on the rear inside tire. I put my finger on it, and the hissing stopped. I lifted my finger and the hissing started again. Oh, no!

I almost didn’t have the heart to tell Mark, but after we’d gotten our photos of the dam, I told him the bad news.

We were in a pretty remote spot, completely out of cell phone and internet range. We hit the nifty “Assist” button on the rear view mirror of the truck to give Dodge a call and ask some questions about changing rear tires, but the call wasn’t able to go through.

Ram trucks have a cool “Assist” button that connects you straight to Dodge…if you’re not in the boonies!

The closest town was Libby, Montana. It boasts a population of 2,700 people, but it was 17 miles down the road.

So much for getting any kind of roadside assistance!

The timing for this little inconvenience wasn’t great. We’d been on the road, towing, for 100 miles, and Mark had just been telling me he was ready to call it quits and take a nap. Oh well. No napping just yet!

Luckily, unlike the last time we’d been stranded on the side of the road — when one of our trailer tires blew out four months ago, shortly after our trailer suspension repair — rather than being on the traffic side of an interstate with cars whizzing by at 75 mph, we were working curbside in a nice big pullout next to an extremely quiet country road where a car would leisurely pass by us every five minutes or so.

We unhitched the truck from the trailer to make it a little easier to get at the rear wheels. Mark got our bottle jack out from its storage spot under the driver’s side rear seat of the truck, and he began setting it up. I grabbed a stool from our fifth wheel basement and laid out some mats on the ground to create a work space for him.

From a lifetime of mechanical work, he learned long ago to protect his hands, so he pulled on a pair of leather work gloves that he keeps in the truck.

The first step for changing the tire was to remove the hubcap.

Start by removing the hubcap to reveal the lug nuts.

Then, using a breaker bar, he loosened all of the lug nuts. Doing this with the wheel still on the ground is easier than after it’s lifted, because the wheel can’t spin.

Use a breaker bar to loosen the lug nuts while the wheels are still on the ground.

We used to carry a 4-way lug wrench for swapping out flat tires, but one time one of the arms twisted like a strand of licorice as Mark tried to unscrew a stubborn lug nut that wouldn’t budge. It was probably a cheap 4-way lug wrench. Most likely, a better quality 4-way lug wrench wouldn’t have done that, but Mark swore off of those things right then and there, and we’ve been carrying a breaker bar ever since.

The lug nuts on our 2007 Dodge Ram 3500 required a 15/16″ socket. The ones on our 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 require a 7/8″ socket.

Our bottle jack is rated for 12 tons, enough to hold up the axles of either our trailer or truck easily. More important, it’s also tall enough for the axles on our trailer which we raised a few inches higher from the factory standard during our trailer suspension overhaul to help keep our rear end from dragging on steep ramps at gas stations and on uneven dirt roads.

He unscrewed the top of the bottle jack to raise it up.

Unscrew the top of the bottle jack by hand to raise it.

He placed it under a flat metal piece that was welded onto the axle.

Place the bottle jack under a solid flat spot on the axle.

The bottle jack comes with a two-part handle. After removing the two plastic end caps, one tube can be fitted into the other to make a long handle and give you some leverage while pumping up the jack.

Remove the plastic endcaps and fit the tubes together to form a long handle.

He pumped the handle up and down to raise the top of the bottle jack and lift the axle slightly so the wheels no longer touched the ground.

Raise the rear axle of the truck by pumping the bottle jack handle.

With the lug nuts slightly loosened, he now used a Rigid cordless impact driver to remove them completely.

A Rigid 18 volt cordless impact driver makes it a breeze to remove the lug nuts.

We got the impact driver, a cordless drill and a portable radio as part of a terrific kit that included two lithium-ion battery packs. We use the drill every time we raise and lower our fifth wheel’s stabilizer jacks, and we listen to the portable radio all the time!

He collected the lug nuts in the hub cap.

Collect the lug nuts in the hubcap so they don’t roll away.

Then he pulled off the outer wheel.

Pull the wheel off.

The outer wheel is off, now for the inner wheel…

The wheel studs on a dually are extra long to hold both wheels onto the truck. So, once the outer wheel was removed, he could pull off the inner wheel.

Slide the inner wheel off.

And there was the culprit — a big fat self-tapping bolt!

And there it is — a nasty self-tapping bolt. Arghh!!

Our 2016 Ram 3500 came with a toolkit for raising and lowering the spare tire. It is located behind a plastic trim piece under the passenger’s seat.

The toolkit for lowering the spare tire is under the passenger’s seat.

He pulled off the plastic trim piece to get the toolkit out.

Here is the toolkit for lowering and raising the spare tire from its spot under the truck chassis.

Then he pulled the toolkit out from under the passenger’s seat. It is held in place with two knobs, one of which is tightened with a wingnut. When he put the toolkit back in place later, he had to align it before sliding it in, and then tighten the wingnut.

The toolkit is held in place by these knobs (the left one is a wing nut).

The toolkit has several handle extensions and other goodies in it.

The toolkit has all kinds of goodies in it, including a lug wrench that Mark opted not to use since it is probably even more flimsy than a 4-way.

One of the goodies is an L-shaped handle, and there are several extensions that interconnect to lengthen the handle as well.

Two of these tubes fit together to form a long handle that attach to the L-shaped handle.

He assembled two handle extensions to make a long rod and attached the L-shaped handle to the end. Then he inserted this handle into a hole above the license plate bracket. There is a square fitting inside the hole. The end of the handle slipped over the square fitting.

The L-shaped handle and extension tubes fit onto the square fitting in the hole next to the license plate bracket.

Then, he rotated the handle slowly.

Twist the handle to lower (or raise) the spare tire.

This gradually lowered the spare tire from its storage spot under the chassis of the truck onto the ground

The spare tire is held to the truck chassis by a brace that compresses a spring.

The spare tire is held tight to the underside of the truck with a spring fitting that can be snugged nice and tight.

Bracket and spring under the spare tire.

Then he mounted the spare tire on the truck to replace the flat tire.

The spare tire is mounted on the truck.

Next, he slid the outer wheel in place. Using his cordless impact driver, he replaced the lug nuts, tightening them in increments. Starting at the valve stem, he tightened the closest lug nut a bit and then tightened the one that was opposite, then tightened the next one, and then the one opposite that one, etc., working his way around the rim and tightening the wheel equally all the way around. Then he gave each lug nut a final tightening using the breaker bar.

Then he put the hubcap back on. It didn’t pop on really easily using his palm, so he used the top of a rubber mallet to tap it in place.

The hubcap didn’t snap in place using palms only, but the butt end of a soft rubber mallet did the trick.

Interestingly, we could now see exactly how much rubber we had worn off our rear tires in 9,100 miles, because the wheels didn’t hang down evenly.

The brand new spare and 9,000 mile used tire are different heights.

Using a pocket knife, he got a rough estimate of just how much rubber had been worn off — maybe 1/8″ or so.

About 1/8″ of rubber has come off of the tire in 9,000 miles of driving.

He raised the flat tire up into the storage spot under the truck chassis where the spare tire had been, and lowered the bottle jack under the axle so the truck was sitting on all four rear wheels again. We hitched the trailer back up and started to drive.

This little hiccup in our RVing lifestyle had taken about 30 minutes.

Our fancy new truck has a cool display (the DID, or Driver Information Display) that shows the air pressure in each of the six tires on the truck (this is the TPMS, or Tire Pressure Monitor System). We were both really alarmed when the spare tire reported that it had 17 lbs. of pressure while the other three rear tires all had 63 to 65 lbs. What the heck??

The tire pressure for the spare is 17 lbs. Yikes!! (huh????)

The dealership where we bought the truck had told us they’d aired up the spare when we bought the truck new six months earlier. Even though Mark usually uses a tire gauge to measure the air in the spare, he hadn’t this time because it was a brand new tire that seemed perfectly good, had the right sound when he thumped it, and bounced nicely on the ground.

But we grew ever more alarmed as the dashboard display showed 15 lbs., then 13 lbs., and then went to dashes. The road was super quiet, so while driving the 17 miles to get to the Les Schwab tire place in Libby, we pulled over several times to check that the tire wasn’t heating up… It wasn’t.

Now the tire pressure is dashes. What does THAT mean??

We made it to Les Schwab, and they put a terrific new kind of patch on the tire that mounts from the inside. It has a big round rubber flange that mounts inside the tire with a plug that fills the hole.

The spare turned out to have 65 lbs. of air pressure, just the way it should have. So, we all scratched our heads for a while about the weird air pressure numbers we’d seen on the dashboard.

Then our service guy suddenly brightened up. “I know what it was!” he said. “The spare tire doesn’t have a sensor in it to report its tire pressure to the truck, but the original tire did!”

So, as the original tire was being carried under the chassis of the truck, where the spare usually sits, it was transmitting its decreasing tire pressure to the console on the dashboard, and the dashboard was dutifully displaying the numbers as coming from the right inside rear tire even though the tire was no longer in that position. Eventually the tire pressure got so low it was below the minimum, so the display showed dashes.

It turns out that that option for the spare tire to have a sensor on the valve stem is only available on Premium models of Ram trucks. We never saw that option in any dealer option lists.

I just showed this post to Mark to see what he thought, and he looked at me in astonishment and said, “When did you take all these photos? This is great!”

“When you were changing the tire!” I explained. “I’m sneaky!” (And I’d MUCH rather write about changing a tire than do it myself!)

Never miss a post — it’s free!

Other blog posts about trucks and trailer towing:

What to Look For When Choosing a Truck for Heavy Duty Towing – Tips for Truck Buyers

Edge Evolution Diesel Engine Tuner – Improved Diesel Engine Performance

B&W OEM Companion Fifth Wheel Hitch – Step-by-Step DIY Hitch Installation in 45 Minutes!

How to Put DEF in a Diesel Truck Without Spilling a Drop! – And which brand is cheapest

Our Trucks and Trailers – The Evolution of Rigs We’ve Owned in our Full-time RV Lifestyle

Trailer Disc Brake Conversion – Save Your Truck’s Service Brakes!

Alice Cooper Sells Us a Truck! – What a FANTASTIC experience that was…

One Ton Towing Machines in Trailer Life – Our Tips for Truck Buyers + 75 years of Trailer Life Magazine

Our most recent posts:

Beehive Trail in Arizona – A “Mini Wave” hike by Lake Powell 07/19/24
Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch 06/27/24
Lake Powell – Heart of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area 05/10/24
Quick Release Pull Pins for Fifth Wheel Landing Jacks – YES! 05/03/24
Sheep May Safely Graze (in the Mountains with Dogs!) 04/26/24

More of our Latest Posts are in the MENU. New to this site? Visit RVers Start Here to find where we keep all the good stuff. Also check out our COOL NEW GEAR STORE!! *** CLICK HERE *** to see it!

Posted in The Full-time RVing & Cruising Lifestyles | Tagged New, Non-Travel, RV Tech Tips, RV Tech Tips Truck, RV Technical Topics, Truck Trailer Hitch | 28 Replies

One Ton Towing Machines and 75 Years of Trailer Life

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Roads Less Traveled

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The July 2016 issue of Trailer Life Magazine is featuring our article about what it takes for a One Ton Truck to be a true heavy duty towing machine. We are incredibly proud to have been asked to write this article about diesel trucks for Trailer Life, and especially that it appears in this month’s very special edition: Trailer Life’s 75th Anniversary Issue.

Trailer Life Magazine – July 2016
Article by: Emily Fagan. Photos by Mark & Emily Fagan
You can read the article here: One Ton Towing Machines

Trailer Life Magazine has been reviewing trucks and giving readers insights and pointers for towing trailers since 1941. As they note on the cover, Trailer Life is “North America’s oldest and most-read magazine for RV enthusiasts.”

Besides our 7 page article about selecting a diesel pickup truck for towing a heavy trailer, this issue looks back at 75 years of RV history and has some wonderful articles on the evolution of RVing.

Trucks and trailers have gone through a huge evolution in the past 75 years!

From the Bowlus Road Chief aluminum sided trailers that resembled an upside down boat and inspired the Airstream, to the Shasta trailers that my hubby Mark remembers from his boyhood camping days with his family, to the iconic Winnebago bread box motorhomes with the big “W” on the side that we still see people driving all over the country, this issue of Trailer Life takes us back in time.

A 1937 Bowlus Road Chief — precursor to the Airstream Trailer!

1954 Shasta Travel Trailer – Mark camped in one of these as a kid!

In this issue, they also talk about the resurgence of interest in retro trailers — we see so many retro trailers on the road as we travel! — and they also have a biographical article about the “Godfather” of Trailer Life Magazine, Art Rouse.

We spotted a 1950 Chevy and 1947 Tear Drop Trailer in Sun Valley Idaho

We met up with owners/restorers of a 1959 Streamline Trailer in Lost Dutchman State Park, Arizona

It is really exciting for our contribution about 2016 diesel trucks to be published this month right alongside such a fun and detailed retrospective look at the RV industry’s history.

Americans — and the world — have taken to RV living in trailers and motorhomes with great gusto for many years. We first got a true feeling for this long history when we visited the RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum in the heart of the RV industry — Elkhart, Indiana — back when we traveled through that area in 2010.

A Visit to the RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum

Besides being able to go into the museum library and peruse yellowed copies of Trailer Life, Escapees Magazine and Motorhome Magazine, as well as many others, from decades ago (the advertisements are hilarious and say so much about American culture in each era!), we also took a walk back in time along their winding indoor “Road Back in Time” exhibit. This took us past and through small and classic RVs from every decade.

The “Road Back in Time” at the RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum in Elkhart, Indiana

Some of the craziest and earliest trailers of nearly 100 years ago were just a canvas tent on wheels (some even had wooden wheels!). The museum also displays Mae West’s House Car and other exotics, as well as a few Shasta, Mallard and Coachmen trailers and Winnebago motorhomes from the 50’s to the 70’s.

a 19′ 1967 Winnebegao Motorhome on the “Road Back in Time”

But the cool thing is to see these oldies-but-goodies out on the road and still in use as we travel, and to meet people who have bought brand new retro style trailers too. You can get the old fashioned look but have all brand new appliances with the latest technology. How fun!

We had a chance to peek inside a brand new retro-style trailer in City of Rocks. NM – Wonderful!

This fantastic retro trailer was pulled by a Honda Element… perfect!

Trailer Life Magazine has been celebrating their 75th anniversary all year long with some really intriguing online articles about the RV industry’s history. Here a link to a few delightful ones:

75 Years of Trailer Life – Online Article Index

For anyone contemplating the RV life or currently enjoying it, Trailer Life Magazine fills a special educational and inspirational niche. It is available both as a glossy print magazine and in digital form online.

After being subscribers ourselves for many years, we began publishing travel destination and technical features in their pages a few years ago (a sampling can be read here), and we still find something new and valuable in every issue. You can subscribe to Trailer Life’s print magazine or digital edition here:

Subscribe to Trailer Life Magazine

We love vintage trailers and get such a kick out of seeing them on the road. We’ve had a few fun enounters with owners of special trailers who have lovingly restored them:

A Mint Condition 1952 Argosy Trailer and Matching Station Wagon

Sisters on the Fly – Vintage Trailers owned by Vintage Gals

Unusual Rigs and a Beautiful 1959 Streamline Trailer

As for buying a big ol’ truck to tow a modern monster fifth wheel trailer, there are some important things to take into account, as not all One Ton trucks are created equal, by a long shot. We talk about a few of those “must have” features in this blog post:

What to Look For When Choosing a Truck for Heavy Duty Towing – Tips for Truck Buyers

There are also quite a few other articles about trucks and towing on this blog as well:

Blog posts about trucks and trailer towing:

Edge Evolution Diesel Engine Tuner – Improved Diesel Engine Performance

B&W OEM Companion Fifth Wheel Hitch – Step-by-Step DIY Hitch Installation in 45 Minutes!

How to Put DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) in a Diesel Truck Without Spilling a Drop! – And which brand is cheapest

Our Trucks and Trailers – The Evolution of Rigs We’ve Owned in our Full-time RV Lifestyle

Trailer Disc Brake Conversion – Save Your Truck’s Service Brakes!

Alice Cooper Sells Us a Truck! – What a FANTASTIC experience that was…

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Never miss a post — it’s free!

Our most recent posts:

Beehive Trail in Arizona – A “Mini Wave” hike by Lake Powell 07/19/24
Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch 06/27/24
Lake Powell – Heart of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area 05/10/24
Quick Release Pull Pins for Fifth Wheel Landing Jacks – YES! 05/03/24
Sheep May Safely Graze (in the Mountains with Dogs!) 04/26/24

More of our Latest Posts are in the MENU above.

Posted in The Full-time RVing & Cruising Lifestyles | Tagged Full-time RV Lifestyle, New, News, Non-Travel, RV Tech Tips, RV Tech Tips Truck | Leave a reply

How to Put DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) in a Truck & Which is Cheapest?

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Roads Less Traveled

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How do you put DEF fluid in a truck without spilling a drop? Here are a few tips for diesel truck owners out there as well as lots of helpful info about Diesel Exhaust Fluid, what it does and where we found it’s cheapest to buy.

Since 2010, diesel pickup truck engines have relied on Selective Catalytic Reduction technology (SCR), which uses Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF), to meet the EPA emmissions standards. DEF is a mixture of 1/3 urea and 2/3 de-ionized water, and it is sprayed into the exhaust system of diesel trucks to reduce the nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions into harmless nitrogen and water.

Late model diesel trucks require refilling the DEF tank!

Each manufacturer designs their trucks with a tank to hold the DEF, and you have to replenish it every so often. Our 2016 Dodge Ram 3500 has a 5 gallon DEF tank. The filler hole is under the gas cap next to the diesel filler hole. On some brands of trucks the filler hole is in the engine compartment under the hood.

The Dodge Ram has the DEF filler hole next to the diesel filler hole under the gas cap

We use this handy magnetic gas cap.

As a side note, opening the gas cap on a Ram truck is interesting because there is no screw-on dust cap covering the diesel filler hole inside. There’s just a spring-loaded flap. We find we need to wipe down the whole area after we’ve taken the truck out on four wheel drive roads in dusty places like southeastern Utah.

We use a nifty aftermarket diesel gas cap that uses a magnet to keep it handy during fill-ups. Just stick it on the side of the truck. Very cool! A slightly less expensive one is also available here.

While it would seem trivial to refill the DEF tank, we struggled the first few times with the bulky jugs and awkward spouts, and it dripped here and there and was basically a pain in the neck.

We’ve also shopped around quite a bit to find DEF that is fairly inexpensive. One of the more common brands is BlueDEF. Others are Command DEF by Prestone and Blue Blood by Cam2. You can also buy it in bulk (see below).

However, the best deal we’ve found is the big blue 2.5 gallon jug of SuperTech DEF sold at Walmart (in-store) for $7.88. The jug is easy to use and it’s drip-free.

SuperTech Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF)

SuperTech DEF comes with a flexible pouring spout that is wrapped around the handle. Simply unscrew the jug’s cap and screw the spout on until it’s really tight.

The SuperTech DEF jug comes with a flexible pour spout wrapped around the handle

Screw the flexible pour spout on tightly

Ready to pour.

There is a small black vent hole on the spout, and this little guy is essential to making the whole process go smoothly and cleanly.

The black air vent on the pour spout is the key to doing this chore
without dripping or spilling

After putting the flexible spout securely into the filler hole on the truck, give the jug a small squeeze to start the flow of fluid. This will make the vent hole on the jug such air in, which vents the jug and allows the fluid to flow easily.

Once the spout is inserted securely in the filler hole, squeeze the bottle slightly to start the flow.

Make sure all the fluid has been poured into the tank, and then you’re done!

Empty the contents into the DEF tank.

The first time we did this, we didn’t squeeze the jug first, and DEF dribbled out the air vent. But if you get the siphon going properly, by squeezing the jug as you start to pour, it’s a cinch.

Our Ram truck has a dashboard gauge that indicates the fill level of the DEF tank. When it gets down to half full, we put a 2.5 gallon jug of DEF into the tank to fill it back up again. We typically do this every 1,000 miles or so.

DEF has a minimum shelf life of a year. We keep just one 2.5 gallon jug on hand at all times. Since we refill our tank about every four to six weeks, we never remotely approach its shelf life.

Buying DEF in Bulk

Another option for DEF fluid is to get it in bulk at a gas station. This is not common yet, and most gas stations don’t have DEF in bulk. However, Flying J and Pilot truck stops carry it at some of their travel centers (see links at the end for locations).

In our travels, we don’t often fill up at Flying J or Pilot, simply because they tend to be on the interstates and we tend to be on back country roads. So, we haven’t yet seen or been able to take advantage of their bulk DEF at the pump.

However, for RVers that use these travel centers a lot, this is a super way to go. The current bulk Flying J / Pilot DEF price at many of their centers is a little less than the SuperTech bottled price (~$2.79/gallon vs. $3.16/gallon).

Pilot / Flying J offers a discount card for RV travelers that gives a few cents off on fuel and 50% off on RV dump station fees, and special discounts for Good Sam Club members.

Pilot and Flying J have DEF in bulk at the pump AND a discount card for RVers

What are the pros and cons with a truck that uses DEF fluid? An obvious disadvantage is that you’ve got to do this extra little chore every so often.

However, there are benefits too. The fuel mileage is slightly better on SCR equipped engines than on older trucks that used a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) to meet the EPA emissions standards (like our 2007 Dodge Ram 3500). Cummins, manufacturer of the engine in the Dodge Ram line of diesel trucks, says the improvement can be up to 5%.

This increase in fuel economy is because the improved conversion of NOx emissions allows the newer engines to be fully optimized. Also, the older engines go into a “Regen” frequently to burn off the particulates in the Diesel Particulate Filter. In a Regen, a higher quantity of fuel than normal is pumped into the engine to make it run hot so the particulates can be burnt off. This wastes fuel and ultimately lowers the truck’s overall fuel mileage.

The newer engines that use SCR technology (and DEF) don’t need to go into a Regen quite as often.

For more info on all of this, there are lots of links below that explain the history and mechanics behind Diesel Exhuast Fluid.

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More info about Diesel Exhaust Fluid:

SuperTech DEF sold at Walmart (in-store pickup only)

Diesel Exhaust Fluid Q&A from Cummins

Diesel Exhaust Fluid explanation

Understanding Diesel Exhuast Fluid

Top 10 Facts about Diesel Exhaust Fluid

Pilot Flying J Bulk DEF Locations

Pilot Flying J RV Discount Card Info

Other RV Tips and Tricks: (and even more tips HERE)

How to Defrost an RV Refrigerator in 20 Minutes

How to Wash an RV with Limited Water While Boondocking (additional info for RV washing while boondocking here)

How to Stay Warm in an RV in Winter

How to Save Space in an RV

How to Drive an RV in the Mountains

How to Install a (removable) B&W Fifth Wheel Hitch

How to Get Phone & Internet Access On the Road (a minimalist solution)

How to Dump the RV Holding Tanks

Our most recent posts:

Beehive Trail in Arizona – A “Mini Wave” hike by Lake Powell 07/19/24
Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch 06/27/24
Lake Powell – Heart of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area 05/10/24
Quick Release Pull Pins for Fifth Wheel Landing Jacks – YES! 05/03/24
Sheep May Safely Graze (in the Mountains with Dogs!) 04/26/24
More of our Latest Posts are in the MENU. New to this site? Visit RVers Start Here to find where we keep all the good stuff. Also check out our COOL NEW GEAR STORE!! *** CLICK HERE *** to see it!

Posted in The Full-time RVing & Cruising Lifestyles | Tagged Full-time RV Lifestyle, New, Non-Travel, RV Tech Tips, RV Tech Tips Truck, Truck Trailer Hitch | 18 Replies

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Our Most Recent Posts:
Beehive Trail in Arizona – A “Mini Wave” hike by Lake Powell
Reese Goose Box Review: 20K Gen 3 TESTED + How to Hitch
Lake Powell – Heart of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
Quick Release Pull Pins for Fifth Wheel Landing Jacks – YES!
Sheep May Safely Graze (in the Mountains with Dogs!)
How to Replace Electric Fifth Wheel Landing Legs – Easy DIY!

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