What's new
By:
Filters

bumper pull to gooseneck conversion

Wades_76_cj7

Wades_76_cj7

RZR guy, NO I am not gay..
Joined
Jun 13, 2020
Member Number
1987
Messages
1,127
Loc
KC MO
Who was on the old site that did the bumper pull to gooseneck conversion? I remember seeing pics but can't remember who it was? I think it was in the PNW and he was hauling quads or something? it was bolted on IIRC

I saw a pic on FB of this last night so I looked on YT and found a video of them installing it on a travel trailer. I am positive I can build this myself. I hate having to deal with the WD hitch on my camper and the trailer sway dealing with cross wind while towing it. My toyhauler is a 32' bumper pull that I have had 4 years now. I pull it with a 3/4 2015 CCSB Cummins with a WD hitch with the friction style sway control. I would love to have a 5th wheel camper but with the crazy inflated prices right now I will keep what I have. I have no doubt that I could build this myself. Anyone think this is a terrible idea? Will nuns and orphans be in danger?
gooseneck hitch conversion

My plan was to use 4*6*1/4" wall rectangular tubing for the neck and 6-8" C-channel for the frame that the neck attaches to and bolts onto the trailer tongue frame. I prefer to bolt it to the camper vs welding it on and making it permanent. Reason for that is the homemade tongue may scare buyers off in a few years when I sell and upgrade and not everyone has a gooseneck hitch in their truck.
 
rockota said:
texasdick?
Click to expand...
he was the guy that built all the badass trailers.. He drove a service truck IIRC that he pulled his crawler haulers with. 40' trailers with 20ish foot campers on the front and back half of the deck for hauling his Jeep.
 
Wades_76_cj7 said:
he was the guy that built all the badass trailers.. He drove a service truck IIRC that he pulled his crawler haulers with. 40' trailers with 20ish foot campers on the front and back half of the deck for hauling his Jeep.
Click to expand...

He did do a goose conversion on his last trailer, I believe.
 
I don't see how you could possibly make it bolt on without cutting off the old hitch, unless you plan to make the bumper pull hitch bolt on as well?

I'd just go for full weld on with some 8" channel or I beam. Then make a deck up top for quads, or a small SXS. Would probably have to unhook and drop the jacks way down to load the sxs from the front, but would still work. Get an adjustable coupler that has an available 5th wheel pin also incase your future buyer only has a 5th wheel.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
I don't see how you could possibly make it bolt on without cutting off the old hitch, unless you plan to make the bumper pull hitch bolt on as well?
Click to expand...
It could be made 100% bolt on using a ball on the gooseneck portion.

Hitch.jpg
 
total newb said:
Thats exactly how the one i recall was done.

It was also made to till using a 8t engine hoist cyl, iirc
Click to expand...
I did find a thread on the old site talking about someone adding a gooseneck tongue and adding tilt to their bumper pull but the pics weren't there. I assume it was due to Photobucket issue from years back? the thread was from 09 or something i think?

I did find a TexasDick thread that he cut the tongue off a tag trailer that he built that had a travel trailer on the front and crawler deck on the back. I am not wanting to permanently change the toyhauler. In a few years when this nonsense settles down I would like to upgrade to newer camper so this needs to be removeable.

Any reason to think that a single 4x6x1/4 wall rect tube won't be strong enough for this? I will add a 1/4" plate gusset at the corners of the neck. Trailer sticker on the door claims the trailer is 7500# dry. It's a tandem axle with 6 lug, 5200/6000# axle. I have weighed the truck and trailer loaded for camping and the gross was 20k pounds. Ten thousand on the trailer axles and 10k on the truck. I can't remember the truck split F/R off the top of my head but I wanna say it was about 1500 tongue weight from the trailer.
 
I definitely saw a contraption a few months ago. Literally just clamped the tongue, looked like a transporter maybe that must have hated bumper pull.
 
Have you tried a second friction type sway control? Running two of them is recommended above 10k and 30'
If you haven't, they're only $30 from Harbor Freight and might be worth trying before building a different hitch for it.

www.harborfreight.com

Trailer Sway Control Kit

Amazing deals on this Trailer Sway Control Kit at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.
www.harborfreight.com www.harborfreight.com
 
ZSK said:
Have you tried a second friction type sway control? Running two of them is recommended above 10k and 30'
If you haven't, they're only $30 from Harbor Freight and might be worth trying before building a different hitch for it.

www.harborfreight.com

Trailer Sway Control Kit

Amazing deals on this Trailer Sway Control Kit at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.
www.harborfreight.com www.harborfreight.com
Click to expand...
I will try this first. You are correct in a second sway control is cheaper and easier than building the hitch.
 
$2850 and they couldn't make the time to take any decent pics of it?
 
Wizzle said:
I have one of these detachable gooseneck hitch on a Rolloff trailer. It bolts into the tongue. It’s not the same trailer but the concept is the same and it works awesome.

nedland.com

Detachable roll-off gooseneck hitch | Nedland roll-off system

With a detachable gooseneck, you'll easily maneuver your roll-off dumpsters into tight spots—and be empowered to swap for a pintel hitch set-up in a pinch.
nedland.com nedland.com
Click to expand...
Can the rolloff trailer be pulled as a bumper pull as well? i assume if so it has a ball mount at the bottom of the V for the bumper pull hitch to lock onto then the tops of the V attach to the sides of the A frame on the trailer somehow?
 
going gooseneck for sway control, no way. maybe if you need deck space on top of the goose but still... the problem likely wont be solved by just adding a goose. bumper pull you want 9-14% tongue weight, goose you want 20-25%. you need to know your weights with WD and with out WD hooked up or your shooting in the dark on a 'fix' and most toy haulers i run with have too big of a load, in that case going gooseneck would make the sway worse.

i personally prefer bumper pull for a toy hauler that size, the right WD hitch allows you to adjust for loaded and unloaded toy area. and it leaves the bed free for more toys.

the trailer only sways because your weights are off... if the weights are close enough a goose will fix the issue, then a bigger WD hitch or additional friction control will work just fine. if the weights are off so much they dont fix the problem, neither will the goose.

everyone thinks goose/ fifth trailers magically dont have sway problems, and they dont. we drag our trailers all over the west coast and right now the only one with a sway issue is fifth hitch. its a big 3axle momentum trialer with an f450 tow rig. and i'll be moving the axles back on it in the next month to fix the issue. this rig sways bad when loaded with toys but pulls great unloaded.
 
Last edited:
I have drawn a attachable Goose tongue a few times, never built one.

If you have a unruly trailer a pivot projection hitch will likely resolve it.
www.propridehitch.com

Trailer Sway Control Hitch | ProPride 3P

The ProPride 3P anti sway trailer hitch main unit consists of two 3/4" thick links that project the pivot point of the trailer forward to near the rear axle of your tow vehicle.
www.propridehitch.com www.propridehitch.com
 
I know this is an old topic but to answer your question I did find this
www.bpconversions.com

THE CONVERTER | bpconversions

www.bpconversions.com www.bpconversions.com

I was looking at putting it on our mobile kitchen, dual axel weight is between 9-14K depending on how we load it.
Tongue weight is about 1.5-2 tons and currently bumper pull.

We have current problems of hitting bumps and the trailer seesawing and making the truck jump
Do you think converting it to a Gooseneck then a 5th wheel will help with that?
 
chefmike87 said:
I know this is an old topic but to answer your question I did find this
www.bpconversions.com

THE CONVERTER | bpconversions

www.bpconversions.com www.bpconversions.com

I was looking at putting it on our mobile kitchen, dual axel weight is between 9-14K depending on how we load it.
Tongue weight is about 1.5-2 tons and currently bumper pull.

We have current problems of hitting bumps and the trailer seesawing and making the truck jump
Do you think converting it to a Gooseneck then a 5th wheel will help with that?
Click to expand...
That is the same website I linked in the OP.
 
1F2A21DD-22F1-477F-820F-344E3505BCBB.png

Is this it. Think i saved it from the other site
 
aczlan said:
Seen that before and it looks REALLY light unless that is a light gooseneck...

Aaron Z
Click to expand...

it looks like he was only hauling quads on it when I saw that on the old site.. I thought the OP of that thread over there was in OR or maybe WA state? I am almost positive it was in the PNW though.

chefmike87 said:
I Was looking to Do Bumper to Goose Neck
Click to expand...

this is what I was wanting to do as well. With the price of steel though I have decided to keep tweaking my setup. I think the biggest thing that changed on mine was I added airbags to the truck and I replaced one of the load bars on the WD hitch. I think I originally had a 1k # WD bars on it and I guessed and put 800-1200# bar on it. (I didn't buy the hitch, it came with my camper.) With the new bar and running the same number of links on the tension I think it was side loading one side a bit and maybe transferring too much to the front axle. I have since ordered another load bar to match the new one and will drop the tension one link and see if that helps my situation.

I have to get it sorted out pretty quick though. It's about 700 miles to Royal Blue in TN and it's gonna suck if I am driving 55 the entire way cuz the tail is wagging the dog.. :shaking:
 
Wades_76_cj7 said:
it looks like he was only hauling quads on it when I saw that on the old site.. I thought the OP of that thread over there was in OR or maybe WA state? I am almost positive it was in the PNW though.



this is what I was wanting to do as well. With the price of steel though I have decided to keep tweaking my setup. I think the biggest thing that changed on mine was I added airbags to the truck and I replaced one of the load bars on the WD hitch. I think I originally had a 1k # WD bars on it and I guessed and put 800-1200# bar on it. (I didn't buy the hitch, it came with my camper.) With the new bar and running the same number of links on the tension I think it was side loading one side a bit and maybe transferring too much to the front axle. I have since ordered another load bar to match the new one and will drop the tension one link and see if that helps my situation.

I have to get it sorted out pretty quick though. It's about 700 miles to Royal Blue in TN and it's gonna suck if I am driving 55 the entire way cuz the tail is wagging the dog.. :shaking:
Click to expand...


The Biggest issue on my trailer that its a mobile kitchen (the pass side weights 5k while the driver side weights 7k)
They have 7500 torsion axels x 2

We put a blue ox weight distribution hitch with sway bars and 5K air bags on the 3500 dually Chevy

But we still seam to have a descent amount of "seesawing" from the front to the back when we hit any dip in the road after a small bridge.
I feel like Moving it to a gooseneck then a 5th wheel conversion may reduce a large amount of that since the dip of the front end of the trailer would be into the axles of the truck opposed to the bumper
 
ZSK said:
AlxJ64 built that to run a Goose behind an old school bus I believe.
Click to expand...
Yep, that's mine. We used it several times and it worked great. We had 6 ATVs total on the trailer, including one on the ramps on the bow. We towed it behind the Medium length school bus as mentioned.

The load is still mostly into the normal gooseneck frame and the beam of adapter is pretty much just a moment frame. If you think about the load path for both tongue weigh and tension it gets distributed mostly back into the goose. We had 1100 lbs of tongue weight on it too and again, zero problems. Would hook back to it tomorrow but we have a regular bumper pull and a 30' Big Tex Goose in the group now, in conjunction with this trailer still as a gooseneck.
 
so anyways, what the heck was the thread? I'm pretty certain there was one on this board here and not the old one. Somebody doing a gooseneck conversion on a bumper pull open deck trailer.

tossing around ideas in my head. need to redo the tongue regardless and a few cross beams. going goose would give me a bit more weight rating on the same axles and gets back my full 20 foot deck if I move the box of straps and craps to the neck
 
Wades_76_cj7 said:
it looks like he was only hauling quads on it when I saw that on the old site.. I thought the OP of that thread over there was in OR or maybe WA state? I am almost positive it was in the PNW though.



this is what I was wanting to do as well. With the price of steel though I have decided to keep tweaking my setup. I think the biggest thing that changed on mine was I added airbags to the truck and I replaced one of the load bars on the WD hitch. I think I originally had a 1k # WD bars on it and I guessed and put 800-1200# bar on it. (I didn't buy the hitch, it came with my camper.) With the new bar and running the same number of links on the tension I think it was side loading one side a bit and maybe transferring too much to the front axle. I have since ordered another load bar to match the new one and will drop the tension one link and see if that helps my situation.

I have to get it sorted out pretty quick though. It's about 700 miles to Royal Blue in TN and it's gonna suck if I am driving 55 the entire way cuz the tail is wagging the dog.. :shaking:
Click to expand...
If you can find a Hensley Arrow or ProPride 3P hitch you could solve this problem even if your weights aren't ideal.
They aren't cheap by any stretch but they hold their value and make bumper pull camper towing a breeze.

kansascity.craigslist.org

Hensley Hitch - auto parts - by owner - vehicle automotive sale - craigslist

Hensley hitch for sale. I’ve owned it about two years. No issues. Comes with stinger, OCL wrench and ratchet wrench. You need nothing. If you don’t know how this hitches work, they eliminate sway....
kansascity.craigslist.org
springfield.craigslist.org

ProPride Towing Hitch - trailers - by owner - vehicle automotive sale - craigslist

ProPride 3P 1400 with 2x2-1/2" receiver in excellent condition. Bought this to pull a camper that we recently put on a permanent site, so we don't need it anymore. This is THE Big Boy top of the...
springfield.craigslist.org
 
I need to update this. I got my issue sorted out. I had two different load level bars on my WD hitch. I replaced one bar and guessed. I ended up ordering a second 1200# load bar and dropping the preload on the links one link and it pulls straight again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Back Refresh