Pinbox Cushion Style

Cotreker · January 22

Adding a standard pickup 5th wheel hitch to my Volvo 670. Cannot use the ET Hitch because my pin weight is only 2200 lbs. Henry with ET Hitch tells me to look for a Pinbox that has cushion or dampening built in to protect the RV. Will the GenY hitch do this? Who else makes a good Pinbox?

RV Brinkley Z3100 GVRW 15,000lbs

Bonus Points: Which hitch should I mount on the semi?

rickeieio · January 22

I'd be looking for a nice used TrailerSaver hitch for the truck. Plenty of capacity for your use, and fine for a mid sized fifth. We used one for about 10 years (bought used) and had no issues. Just add a leveling valve and forget it.

Cotreker · January 22

Rich, cannot use an air ride hitch with the low pin weight of 2200 lbs. Henry with ET does not recommend his product or other type hitches. So I will go with the Pinbox that will give flex or cushion. Maybe GenY….

Nigel · January 22

Buy what you think will work best for you. I have at least thirty thousand miles using a Trailsaver TSLB2H with a trailer that has a 1500 lb pin weight from the factory. I’m sure my actual pin is a couple of hundred pounds heavier with all the stuff I have packed up front. What can I say the combination works well.
Best of luck searching out the options.

Nigel

phoenix2013 · January 22

GenY will certainly work for you. I saw on their website one that goes .5-2K, but I saw one that seem to go higher (didn't see specs). H

Cotreker · January 22

Looks like Trailer Saver TSLB is the correct product for my RV. Thanks All.

Av8r3400 · January 23

As I put on Facebook, this is a video of my old Carbon 364 on my ET senior. It's also a 16k gross trailer, but it was between 3000 and 3500 pin weight. As I mentioned on Facebook I would suggest confirming that 2200 pound pin weight. That's only 12% of a 16k trailer and even for a poorly designed RV, that is really light.

Edited January 23 by Av8r3400

phoenix2013 · January 28

I had a conversation with the folks at Youngs Welding about the lower capacity ET hitches (besides the ones I'm working on for pickups), with four 1,500 lbs. bags to make these work with the 2,500 - 3,000 lbs. pin weights.

Chance remembered it, I forgot (!!!) that I solved that problem years back. I redesigned the ET Junior to accept four of these bags and do the job. The other part of the redesign was to build the Junior with a Senior style mounting plate ready for install in the semis. I'll see if I can dig out these drawings.

Cheyenne1 · January 28

I ran a trailer saver TS3 on my last truck.
Had it for 12 years and pulled over 225,000 KM ( 140,000 miles )

Worked great. Only a few maintenance things need to be done.
Nothing wrong with that hitch in my opinion.
I have another TS3 ready to install on my new truck as soon as I get around to it.

Cotreker · January 28

I am getting ready to pull the trigger on a Trailer Saver hitch just debating between the TS3 and TSLB. The TSLB gives me more room for growth in the future but not sure I need it. The TS3 mounts differently on rails as I understand reading about it. So each product will require me to mount a metal plate between my frame rails and then mount the rails to the plate. Do I have the process correct?

All of the height requirements need to be carefully thought out in order to get the plate to the correct height. I think this target height is 48" please confirm. Goal is to get the 5er level or noise down slightly so it has a bit more pin weight. My pin weight will be 2200 lbs. My Brinkley comes out of production mid March.

Av8r3400 · January 28

I did my truck at 48". This was a huge mistake. My Momentum Toy Hauler is more like 52-54". I wound up needed to extend and modify the pin box on the trailer to get it to ride level.

I'd highly suggest measuring your pin height at level to see what you really need.