Want a premium, US-made hitch that can be removed to leave your bed totally free? Check. Need a slider to get you through those tight turns? Check. How about the option of towing a gooseneck trailer when you're done with the camper? You got it.
Features:
Specs:
Note: This fifth-wheel trailer hitch is not compatible with Sidewinder or Revolution king pins. Do not use any device that changes the pivot point of your trailer's king pin with this hitch.
With the Companion from B&W, you get a heavy-duty fifth-wheel trailer hitch that mounts in your truck bed by connecting directly to the included Turnoverball gooseneck hitch. No modifications are required to your truck or trailer. And no additional parts are required for the system to work. When you're done towing, the Companion can be removed for complete bed access.
The included Turnoverball serves as a sturdy, custom base for installing the Companion in the bed of your truck, but it's also one of the most recognizable gooseneck hitches on the market.
Gooseneck Specs:
With the B&W Turnoverball underbed gooseneck trailer hitch you get the best of both worlds. When you go to tow a gooseneck trailer, the Turnoverball creates a sturdy, dependable connection with your trailer. And when you're done towing, you can stow the ball upside down in the hitch to get full bed access and a clean appearance. When you're ready to tow your fifth wheel trailer, just install the Companion in the ball hole in place of the gooseneck ball and lock the post in place using the built-in handle. You can remove the fifth wheel when you're done towing, leaving your truck bed open once again.
This kit is custom designed for your vehicle. The gooseneck hitch body bolts to existing holes in your truck's frame. While some modification is required - you will need to cut a 4" diameter hole in your bed for the hitch ball and drill holes for the built-in safety chain loops - there is no need to weld onto or to drill into your frame.
Once you have the brackets and center section installed, set up the operating handle. This handle is designed to be accessed from the rear driver's-side wheel well. On the end of the handle is the heavy-duty steel pin that secures the mounting post of the Companion (or the base of the gooseneck hitch ball).
The 1" thick jaw on the Companion is precision machined to provide a tight, sturdy connection. And unlike slide-bar models, the rounded 2-piece jaw on this fifth-wheel trailer hitch inhibits rattle and movement by securely wrapping around your trailer's king pin, resulting in easier hookup and a safer, quieter ride.
In addition to the sturdy jaw, the Companion has durable polyurethane bushings built in to provide a smoother, more comfortable towing experience. These bushings sit on top of the pivot arms that support the fifth-wheel head. Because the head is resting on a padded area, it is able to pivot without clanking. The ability of the head to pivot - both front to back and side to side - along with the trailer also helps to limit the chucking that may occur with a more static hitch.
The dual jaw on the Companion is operated by a simple-to-use cam-action handle. This handle allows you to quickly and easily release the jaws on the hitch, even if you are on uneven terrain. If any binding does occur between your truck and trailer, the jaws may remain closed after you move the handle to the open position. But because the handle is unlatched, there is nothing keeping the jaws closed except for the binding pressure. Therefore, simply driving your truck forward will be enough to force the jaws to open.
The cam-action handle is held in the closed position with the included pin and clip. For extra security, you can replace the pin with a sturdy padlock. The shackle on the lock you choose should have a diameter of 5/16", height of 3", and a width of 2-1/4".
Most often used on trucks with 6' beds, a slider helps to eliminate clearance problems during slow-speed turns. When you are towing a fifth-wheel trailer, your hitch must be situated on the cab side of your truck's rear axle. However, at slow speeds you can use a slider to slide the fifth-wheel hitch (and the trailer) toward your truck's tailgate and past the rear axle, creating enough space between the cab of your truck and the trailer to permit less-restricted turning.
The slider that is built into the base of the Companion allows for 12" of fore and aft travel to give you the clearance you need.
The Companion's pivot arms are what allow the hitch to be adjusted front to back as well as up and down for optimal positioning. As a result, this hitch can accommodate the height of your trailer and also help to give you some additional cab clearance. To adjust either the height of the hitch or the fore/aft positioning, just attach the hitch's pivot arms in the desired location on the base.
The hitch head installs on top of the pivot arms. When you have the head in position, simply secure it to the arms with the included pins.
Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everyone, Ryan here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be checking out the line of B&W turnoverball underbed gooseneck trailer hitches. With these being all custom fit, be sure to use our fit guide, enter in your truck's information to make sure you're gonna get the right one. Today we have it on a Silverado, but these are all gonna work the same way regardless of the make and model that you might have. There are quite a few manufacturers who make gooseneck trailer hitches for pickup trucks and the one that I find myself recommending time and time again is a B&W. And I say that because their products are awesome, you know, they're well-built, everything fits good and just works like you'd expect it to.
And if you're familiar at all with the towing world, you've probably heard of that B&W name and there's a reason for it. And that's because people have really good luck with setups like this. What's gonna separate the turnover ball kits from some of the other ones is a few things really. One of 'em being the fact that when you're not using your hitch, you can take the ball and flip it upside down and actually store it in the hitch there, which is pretty convenient. You know, you're not gonna have to deal with, you know, your ball rolling around in the backseat of your truck or you know, forgetting it in the garage or anything like that.
You can leave it in here and it'll always stay with the truck, you know, which isn't a huge deal to some people. I think it's pretty convenient though. Something else is the bed space. So when you're not using it, this is really all you're gonna have to deal with. You know, the hitch doesn't take up a lot of space in all the different types of trucks, so you're still gonna have that full bed access.
So if you need to haul lumber or parts or whatever, you're not gonna have a big hitch in here taking up all the space. But what I think is really cool about these particular kits is you almost get two hitches for the price of one. And what I mean by that is, you know, we obviously have our goose ball here that we can use for our goose in our trailer. But if you ever find yourself getting a fifth wheel-type trailer as well, or maybe you have a gooseneck and you have a fifth wheel or you just want to kind of keep your options open, with this setup, all the underbed hitches, you can actually use what's called the B&W Companion. And it's a fifth wheel head that utilizes the underbed hitch.
And so that fifth wheel head will have a shank like this that'll drop into this. You lock it down and then you get that fifth wheel. So pretty convenient. You know, you can grow into it, tow multiple different trailers, so on and so forth. Something else worth noting too, let's say if you don't really care about the gooseneck, right That's not really what you're looking to do, but you don't like the idea of having the in-bed rails, you know, your traditional rails for fifth wheels, you can always use this, hit the Companion and still be able to tow your fifth wheel without having those big rails in the bed of your truck. Something that is important to think about whenever you're using a hitch like this is your bed length. You know, do you have a short bed or a long bed And I say that in particular in regards to short bed trucks, which seem to be for the most part, more popular nowadays. And it's important to think about that. And that's due to cab clearance, okay So with the short bed, your hitch is gonna be a little closer to the cab of your truck. And so if the trailer that you're pulling happens to overhang a little bit, you need to think about that when you're making those turns. You know, you don't want to crash the corner of your trailer into the cab of your truck. With the long beds, It's not really that big of a deal, you know, shouldn't really run into too many issues there. But a couple solutions for those of you that have short beds and are concerned about that or kind of know you might run into that issue, B&W offers an offset ball, okay That'll drop down into here and place that ball a little bit further back to buy you some more space. And if you plan on using the Companion or that fifth wheel that'll drop in here, they make a fixed one which stays put. So you can use that for your long beds. And if you plan on using that setup with a short bed, they make a sliding-type one. That way when you do go to make those type turns, you can unlock the hitch, it'll slide back and give you all that extra clearance. All of the underbed hitches are going to have spring-loaded safety chain openings, which are these here. So when you're not using 'em, they stay down flat. With the springs there, it should help prevent them from rattling. You'll still get a little bit of it, I'm sure, but it's better than nothing. And when you're ready to use 'em, you know, they pull up, you click your safety chains to it, and that's really all there is to it there. So pretty convenient. And that honestly is pretty normal for a lot of the hitches across the board, even by other manufacturers. For the most part, just about all the hitches are gonna have a 30,000 pound maximum gross trailer weight rating, which is gonna be the amount of weight pulling on the hitch. So that is the weight of your trailer, plus anything you might have in or on it. Now, it is a good idea to check the instructions for your kit and your particular truck just to verify that weight capacity. And while you're at it, you know, grab your truck's owner's manual too, look in there and make sure it can even handle that amount of weight. And you never want to exceed what the truck or the hitch is rated to pull. Since these kits are gonna be custom fit to your particular truck, everything goes together pretty smooth. And that's where the quality control from B&W comes into play. You really don't have to fight with this a whole lot or do crazy modifications. And that's gonna hold true for just about all the makes and models, at least that I've ran into. Everything goes together really nicely. Their finish on all their hitches is really nice too. It's a powder coat finish. I think it looks good and seems to hold up for quite some time. So should get quite a few years out of this, you know, before you run into any corrosion or anything along those lines. Compared to some of the other hitches too, other manufacturers, I like B&W's handle mechanisms, they tend to be really smooth and you don't really have to search around for the lock. You know, some of the other ones you have to kind of do one of those deals and it wants to unsnap and everything else. And that's just not the case with the B&W hitches. You don't even have to think about it, pull it out, bump it over a little bit, locks into place or unlocks, and that's how the hitch is gonna operate. So it's really straightforward. You pull out, lock it, You can turn the ball around or do what you need to do in there, and then when you're ready to tow or lock everything down, that's all there is to it. So I figured we'd pull into the garage here, get it up in the air and see how the hitch looks underneath our particular truck. And this is gonna be how it looks in a lot of the situations, you know, and I feel like B&W does a really good job of keeping things as simple as possible and low profile as possible. So for such a heavy-duty hitch, doesn't really take up a lot of space even underneath the truck. And I feel like because of that, that's going to allow the hitch in most cases to be compatible with suspension upgrades. And that's one of the big questions we run into a lot when people are setting up their truck with a hitch like this, you know, "Am I gonna be able to use air springs or some type of suspension enhancement" And in our case today, and in many cases that I've experienced in the past, nine times out of 10, the upgrades are gonna be compatible with the hitch. So perfect example, today we have our Ride Right, Or I'm sorry, our Air Lift Air Helper springs installed in conjunction with the hitch. And it's hard to speak across the board for every single make and model and every single suspension enhancement, but chances are pretty good with the B&W hitch you'll be able to do something like this And there's a lot of information available and out there, so you can always, you know, do a little bit more research and just make sure all that stuff is going to work together. So ultimately, what you're gonna get with the B&W compared to some of them other hitches is just that quality. You know, I've installed a ton of these on all different types of makes and models, and it's consistent every single time, and everything works like it should goes together like it should. And it's something that you just have to kind of get your hands on. And once you do, you'll notice that, you know, it definitely has an advantage, at least in my opinion, on a lot of the other types of hitches. And not to mention too, being able to take that Companion, that fifth wheel if need be and drop the thing in this hitch and kind of get two for one is huge, at least to me. And like I said, kind of grow into it and tow all different types of trailers. But with that said, I think that'll about do it for our look at of the line of B&W custom fit underbed gooseneck trailer hitches.
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (4135 Customer Reviews)
Want a premium, US-made hitch that can be removed to leave your bed totally free? Check. Need a slider to get you through those tight turns? Check. How about the option of towing a gooseneck trailer when you're done with the camper? You got it.
Do you have a question about this 5th Wheel Hitch?
Info for this part was:
At etrailer.com we provide the best information available about the products we sell. We take the quality of our information seriously so that you can get the right part the first time. Let us know if anything is missing or if you have any questions.
Thank you! Your comment has been submitted successfully. You should be able to view your question/comment here within a few days.
Error submitting comment. Please try again momentarily.