Short-bed trucks are increasing in popularity while decreasing in length. Most of the ½-ton crew cab trucks have only a five-foot-five-inch bed. Here, I’ll give you three ways to ease hauling with a short-bed: two fixes for gooseneck trailers and one for bumper-pull trailers. Gooseneck Hitch Fixes
If you have a short-bed truck and a gooseneck trailer, you know that hitching up can be challenging. You need to place the trailer weight far enough forward from the rear truck axle for steering control, balance, and efficient, effective brake and spring use.
However, if the trailer nose is wide, you might not have much clearance between it and the truck cab when you turn tight corners or back at an angle. You can even break your truck’s rear window with your trailer on a tight turn.
Some horse haulers with light trailers get by with placing the gooseneck ball bed hitch directly over the rear axle. However, I believe you need to place it two to four inches forward of the rear axle. Otherwise, the front of the truck will float and be hard to steer.
There are narrow-nosed horse and livestock trailers designed for short-bed trucks, but there are other options; following are two after-market fixes.
• Extended gooseneck trailer coupler. PopUp Industries’ new Extended Gooseneck Trailer Coupler (800/837-8578; www.popuphitch.com/sb1coupl.htm) provides more clearance between the truck cab and the trailer nose for more trailer swing. This accessory also gives you more hookup room between the truck’s tailgate and the trailer’s bulkhead.
This coupler is built like a tank. It comes with an auto-latching coupler, so you can pull the included cable to latch (and unlatch) your trailer without climbing into the bed. That’s right — without climbing into the bed. The coupler fits standard, round trailer tubes and installs in about 30 minutes. It’s available in 9- and 16-inch-extension models.
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• Gooseneck trailer extender. B&W Trailer Hitches (800/248-6564; www.turnoverball.com) offers a four-inch extender as an accessory to its patented turnover ball. This extender gives you four more inches of turning clearance between the truck cab and the trailer’s front end. (Four extra inches of clearance can greatly enhance truck balance when pulling a fully loaded trailer). It also gives you more hookup room between the truck’s tailgate and the trailer’s lower front end. Bumper-Pull Hitch Fix
If you tow a bumper-pull trailer with a short-bed truck, and would like to add a slide-in camper, consider buying an extension that attaches to your truck’s receiver hitch. This extension type gives you more room between truck and trailer for the back of the camper. A variety of models are available at hitch-accessory stores and online.
However, note that with this type of extension you lose one-third of your truck’s trailer-tongue weight capacity.
This isn’t much of a problem if you use a ¾-ton truck to tow a two-horse trailer and have a light slide-in camper. But if you drive a ½-ton truck, you may not have sufficient trailer-tongue capacity after adding in the camper’s weight.
For example, say your ½-ton truck has a factory-rated payload of 2,000 pounds. A soft-sided, slide-in camper adds 1,500 pounds. This leaves 500 pounds for trailer-tongue weight.
The trailer-tongue weight is about 10 percent of your loaded trailer. So if you’re towing a 5,000-pound trailer, you’re maxed out without the hitch extension. Add the extension, and you’d lose one-third of that tongue-weight capacity (167 pounds), leaving you with 333 pounds. This means that the most you could tow would be 3,333 pounds.
H. Kent Sundling (a.k.a. Mr. Truck; www.mrtruck.com) is a well-known automotive journalist, reviewing trucks, trailers, and accessories for magazines and websites. He travels the country test-driving new trucks, towing trailers, and reviewing horse-trailer manufacturing facilities. His trail mount is a 9-year-old Arabian crossbred mare named Athena.
