[dataway]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

A fifth wheel/gooseneck trailer fixes all of these problems...........

I only use a ball hitch on small trailers, with little tongue weight. I've hauled heavy ball hitch trailers and there is no comparison to the stability and secure feeling a bed mounted hitch has over a bumper mounted hitch. One other advantage is no searching for raccoons on telephone poles with your headlights at night.

+100 I pull a 26' enclosed goose neck with living quarters with a 2011 GMC 1500 5.3 (all towing options). The big danger of a gooseneck or 5th wheel ..... you forget you are towing. I've pulled this trailer at 90 mph on the straight without problems, and around the mountain corners of New England all day ...can't even tell it's back there unless you are accelerating or braking. Still quite a bit of room in the bed of the truck for equipment.

People never believe how good a gooseneck is until they tow one. Just incredibly stable, never even a twitch.
JohnnyB

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by dataway

+100 I pull a 26' enclosed goose neck with living quarters with a 2011 GMC 1500 5.3 (all towing options). The big danger of a gooseneck or 5th wheel ..... you forget you are towing. I've pulled this trailer at 90 mph on the straight without problems, and around the mountain corners of New England all day ...can't even tell it's back there unless you are accelerating or braking. Still quite a bit of room in the bed of the truck for equipment.

People never believe how good a gooseneck is until they tow one. Just incredibly stable, never even a twitch.
JohnnyB

I have an inverted 5th wheel 27 foot camper and it tows just as you say, so nicely you never even know it's there. With the inverted 5th wheel you only have a 2 inch pin in the bed and same as a gooseneck you can get one that stows flush or just remove the nut on the bottom if you have to have a bed that's completely flat to say, haul sheets of plywood, drywall etc.. My camper is a 1978 Holiday Rambler, so it's no lightweight and last year I made my own air ride suspension. Not helper bags over springs, mine is completely suspended by air, it has a very nice ride for a K 3500 dually, night and day over the spring suspension it had when I bought it. My wife couldn't believe the difference in the ride the first time she rode in it after I installed my air ride. I haven't gotten around to plumbing in an air ride automatic leveling valve so right now, so I adjust it manually for load, height and ride quality. It's also nice to be able to dump the air and lower the truck when loading the bed or hooking or unhooking up to trailers, no cranking the jack up and down to get the height correct, just adjust the truck height with the air ride.

Next step is engineering and building a setup for the front suspension since no one offers an air ride setup for a 4X4 chevy because the axles run where the air bags would be on a 2X4 setup. I'm hoping when done it will ride like a car and still be able to haul over a ton in the bed, a snowplow on the front in the winter and be adjustable for whatever type and load you have in a trailer. If your going to haul trailers and such you might as well make it enjoyable and not beat the fillings out of your teeth while doing it.

At some point I hope to build my own air ride trailer that will kneel to load with no ramps etc. and not beat up whatever you have on/in the trailer.

The torque of a diesel also makes pulling heavy loads easier over gas engined trucks, just taking a page from the big rigs I drove that haul heavy day in and day out.