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hitch extensions who has one who built one?

chaplinfj60

chaplinfj60

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good afternoon all.

working through some of my ideas on a hitch extension and would like to see what some others have come up with.
i totally messed up and did not back up to the trailer before the camper came off. my estimate is like a 12-16 inch extension is all. and relocate the jack.


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I put one of these on my old dodge so I can tow my boat with my camper on. Easy install and seems to work great. I think my extension is 24'' long.

Trailer Hitch | Receiver Hitch | SuperHitch Original 20K | Torklift International

The SuperHitch Original 20K trailer hitch is rated at 2,000 lbs tongue weight, 20,000 lbs weight distributing and uses our patented dual receiver design (2" upper and 2" lower) to max out class five hitch capacities.
www.torklift.com www.torklift.com
 
what i dont understand is the chain that pulls back at an angle it is going down in most cases. i would think it should angle up to help with the load.
 
How much tongue weight? Because there’s always the option of extending the trailer tongue. Doesn’t put any weird stresses on the truck, and gives you more clearance in turns with your now-full-width truck.


Edit: when I did this, I was too big of a pansy to weld up my own tongue extension. The guy at the trailer shop did a very overbuilt job of it, and I’ve been very happy. But it cost an amazing $1500.
 
one buddy mentioned that to me also. it has a bolt on couling for the tongue. could be beefed up and extended but i just don't know.
anywhere from 600-900 tongue weight.

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muleskinner said:
I put one of these on my old dodge so I can tow my boat with my camper on. Easy install and seems to work great. I think my extension is 24'' long.

Trailer Hitch | Receiver Hitch | SuperHitch Original 20K | Torklift International

The SuperHitch Original 20K trailer hitch is rated at 2,000 lbs tongue weight, 20,000 lbs weight distributing and uses our patented dual receiver design (2" upper and 2" lower) to max out class five hitch capacities.
www.torklift.com www.torklift.com
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have one of these as well. I think mine's 36"...

EDIT: 48"
 
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Is there a horizontal crossbar at that jack mounting point? On mine, the dude cut the trailer tongue up near the coupler. Then he ran a 2”x4” rectangular tube through the gap in the tongue C-channels, and tied it in all the way back at like the second or third trailer crossmember. Then obviously welded it up wherever there was contact, mounted a new jack to the big tongue tube further back, and put an adjustable coupler like yours on the end. It was ridiculous overkill for my 10k trailer.

Trailer tongues are kinda odd in my mind. The longer you make it, the less weight it sees, and the better leverage it has. So extend all you want, and your weak point of the tongue is still at the front of the trailer deck.

I’ve sure never thought about making a removable extension to fit into the coupler adjustment channel, but that should actually work. Maybe add some more reinforcement on the adjustment channel itself, make a beefy stub extension, and see how it feels to you. I’d probably use 4 bolts, though.

Edit again: and you’d have to make sure it didn’t have any of the normal slop that the normal adjustable couplers have. You’d now also be concerned with side to side slop instead of just up and down.
 
that makes since for the tongue extension. i like the idea of cut old shit off, weld in new extension and weld bolt on coupling plate there.
 
chaplinfj60 said:
that makes since for the tongue extension. i like the idea of cut old shit off, weld in new extension and weld bolt on coupling plate there.
Click to expand...
Easy for me to suggest since I’m not doing the work. It’s likely the most correct way to do it. But we’re not talking about huge loads here, so probably any of these solutions work.
 
I have an 8'6 Lance on a short-bed Ram. I was thinking I was going to need a 32" extension FWIW.
 
I had a 2000 F250 short bed with a lance 8' camper. I bought a typical 18" extension (solid 2x2) and used shims to take most all the slack out of the coupling on both ends.
Towed 7k boat through the mountains many times and couldn't tell the extension was there.
 
rattle_snake said:
I had a 2000 F250 short bed with a lance 8' camper. I bought a typical 18" extension (solid 2x2) and used shims to take most all the slack out of the coupling on both ends.
Towed 7k boat through the mountains many times and couldn't tell the extension was there.
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i saw one of these last night at theisens farm store. i think i am going this route too. i may add a couple chains from side to side. even got to looking at tractor 3 point adjustable link bars. but i maybe over thinking it.
 
pretty sure woody used to tow with a Torqelift 3 or 4' extension back in the day.
 
rockota said:
pretty sure woody used to tow with a Torqelift 3 or 4' extension back in the day.
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Yep, Ram Mega dually, Host SBDS and a 30 or 36" extension to a 15k Curt dist hitch and a 24' car trailer. Worked great.

Overloaded it badly when we moved from WI to UT with a 26' enclosed that probably scaled 15k.
 
so the weight distro hitch is a good thing. saturday i will drop the camper back on the flat bed and see what i need to come up with. i have a weight disrto hitch now, but the dam brackets are set up for 6 inch frame i have 8 inch frame on the trailer so i need different brackets but that is doable



Bmxbry9 said:
I got the torklift hitch and 48" extension begenning of summer. And am using a weight distribution hitch. So far it's been good

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tomorrow is the day i will put it back on the truck and get some measurements. honestly i am leaning toward hitch extension and weight distro hitch. because i have the weight distro hitch so that helps
 
chaplinfj60 said:
tomorrow is the day i will put it back on the truck and get some measurements. honestly i am leaning toward hitch extension and weight distro hitch. because i have the weight distro hitch so that helps
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No personal experiences with the hitch extensions, but if you use an extension plus weight dist. setup, that pushes the trailer further from the camper corners too.
 
so this is with out any hitch extension

i think this will work, i do need to adjust the hitch height a bit, move the trailer jack maybe.
at full lock driving forward i cant get anything to hit, now backing up i go get into everything for sure.
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Will you need to tilt the trailer while hooked up, or you'll use ramps? I can't see what you have on tail of trailer to tell. Eyeballing, you probably will clear ok when tilting the trailer if you move WD hitch head and trailer's coupler all way down, to move the pivot point down lower and away from the camper.

Do you need an excuse to lift the tow rig? :grinpimp:
 
hmmmm lift maybe the answer. but i could also fill my air bags, witch are not at this time. looking at the lowest possible height is all.
 
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