Gooseneck on a short bed

[njtaco]

Funny you should mention the CJ5 idea...before we put a "ball" in the bed of the work truck, we would move the gooseneck trailers around the lot on a standard 2-5/6 ball on a class 3 receiver. Wait a minute...put a ball in the "bed" of the CJ5! Just for yard work, of course.

Is the frame exposed on the fifth wheel? Or covered with skin? Just curious...

Whenever "upgrading" a fifth wheel with either a gooseneck or pinbox extension, a letter from the trailer (or frame) manufacturer was secured to reduce our company's exposure to liability. Maybe contact the frame company for their input?

 

[madizell]

The neck of the trailer is skinned underneath. Only the pin box is exposed. The pin box extension is factory installed. On reflection, I think that a double extension would be more than the trailer could stand in the long haul. Flexure in the neck area is a problem with 5th wheel trailers to start with, especially newer ones. This one is 20 years old and has held up well, but doubling the reach of the extension would put a lot of off-angle stress on the end of the trailer neck. If it were gusseted back toward the main trailer box, I would expect it to work fine, but that would require pulling the lower skin and working around the original build. No doubt the manufacturer would not approve.

A front ball is an old time means of yard moving heavy trailers. I don't think I could hang the trailer directly on the front of a CJ-5, or in the bed, because the tongue weight is around 1150 pounds, but my CJ-7 might be able to do it, and so could a full sized pickup, for short distances.

On the other hand, the old CJ-5 is more stout than you might think. This summer I pulled an industrial brush chipper 7 miles up the mountain here in Prescott with the CJ-5 because it was the only vehicle in the neighborhood with a pintle hitch. The chipper weighed 4,900 pounds and had a tongue weight of around 800. The guys at the rental place thought it would not be able to take the hitch weight, much less pull it, but it didn't even settle the rear springs all the way, and I drove away with it without issues. Pulling the hill was a pain, but we made it. It did, however, strain the gasket between transmission and T-case adapter, which now leaks a bit, so putting all that torque against a heavy trailer didn't do it any good. It might have helped to use 4WD, but I didn't.