Selecting a Hitch:

We dropped off our truck today to have a 5^th wheel hitch and truck air suspension system installed.  We looked into a lot of different 5^th wheel hitches and the main differences seem to be the towing capacity rating, the type of latching system, the type of mounting system, and some even have an air bag suspension built into the hitch!  The latter costs about 3 times what a normal 5^th wheel hitch costs however.

Since our 2012 F350 dually comes with Reese under-bed rails pre-installed, our challenge was to find a hitch that could pull a 20,000 lb. trailer plus about a 2,000 lb. trike trailer and could mount to the pre-installed under-bed mounting rails.

There are a lot of good hitches out there but not very many rated above 22,000 lbs. along with being able to mount to the under-bed rails.

Since our trailer has a TrailAir pin box and we are installing a Firestone Air Suspension system on the truck, we decided that we would not need a hitch with air suspension as well.  In addition most hitches either did not have an adapter for the under-bed rails or would need to employ an adapter between their standard mounting system and the under-bed mounting system, which is an added complication that concerns me as it relates to reliability and ease of hitch removal when not in use.  Therefore we decided to go with the Reese 25K Elite Series hitch.  This hitch was designed for the under-bed rails and is rated for 25,000 lbs. of pulling capacity. 

There was also the question of lubrication between the trailer and the hitch.  Rather than having messy grease on the skid plate, I found that I could get a lube disc that would do the job without the mess.  This was inexpensive, clean, and effective.

Since our truck is rated for a 4625 lb. payload and this trailer might have about 4,000 lbs. of vertical weight plus the weight of my auxiliary fuel tank and hitch, I was concerned that it might sit very low or bottom out the springs. Therefore I am also having air suspension helper springs added to the truck today as well.