Fifth Airborne Sidewinder Comparison

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Information about Fifth Wheel Hitches
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Fifth Airborne Replacement Trailer King Pin by Fifth Gear
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Sidewinder with Rotating Turret for Short Bed Pickups
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Products Featured in this Video

5th Airborne Sidewinder Arm Assembly by 5th Airborne (Without Turret)

5AS02

$1,149.95

5th Airborne Sidewinder Super Duty Arm with King Pin - 19K

SW19K

$599.95

5th Airborne Sidewinder Standard Arm with King Pin - 16K

SW01

$524.95

Comparison of Fifth Airborne Sidewinders

Today we are going to show you Sidewinder pin box couplers from Fifth Gear. And what these pin box couplers do is they are designed to go ahead and basically use a conventional fifth wheel hitch on the back of a short-bed pickup. As seen here, we have three different varieties. On the left-hand side, we have part number SW01, the Sidewinder Fifth Wheel Pin Box Coupler. This unit is rated for 16,000 lbs it is the basic of the three units. And in the middle we have part number 5AS02, the 5th Airborne Fifth Wheel Air-Ride Coupler. And then we have part number SW19K, the Sidewinder Fifth Wheel King Pin, rated for 19K. They all operate on the same principle, where it shoves the pivot point from the hitch on the vehicle farther back toward the trailer. This allows the trailer to track a little bit better behind your vehicle and also eliminates any need of a slider pitch assembly, so you have plenty of room between the truck and camper. And this is made especially for short-bed pickups. And it does require a six-foot bed or better for perfect operation.

First we are going to talk about the SW01. This is their most basic model. Like you see here, this is where the king pin goes onto the hitch of your vehicle, and then the turret, which is sold separately, mounts onto this pivot point right here. The turret action bolt is the part that bolts onto your pin box location on your trailer. And we can see here, from about this center point here to this center point here, it will actually move that pivot point back about 20-1/2 inches. The construction of this unit is channel construction, as you can see over the side here. There is obviously a plate on the bottom. Again,you see solid construction on the bottom of it. This wedge here - this is actually what does all the work. Basically, what this does is this will slide into your fifth wheel, and then the side of the fifth wheel itself will wrap around the side of this wedge right here, and it keeps it from pivoting any more from here on out. So that makes this pivot point here do all the work. This principle applies onto every model they offer. This is the most basic unit, and it has a rated capacity of 16K.

Next we move on to part number SW19K, and you can tell by the part number, this is actually rated for a capacity of 19K. This follows the same procedure. Your pin is underneath here, on the bottom, and then your pivot point gets shoved back to the trailer. And this is where the turret resides. And, as you can see here, it features a thicker construction - basically a bigger C-channel and heavier plate construction on the bottom. And again, here, you can see the wedge that does lock into position so it does not pivot here any more it only pivots at this point. And we will go ahead and measure the distance between the two points here. And on this one it does look like it moves it back about 22 inches. This part here which you see is part of the bushing system. Basically the turret will sit over this pivot point here and will rub on this. Same thing, as you put a fifth-wheel lube disk on your fifth wheel in a conventional setup.

Next we are going to show you part number 5AS02. This is the 5th Airborne Sidewinder. This is their most advanced unit and it has the most features that are available. As you can see here, it actually comes in two pieces. On this piece here, this actually has the air-ride suspension inside of it, and this is the shock absorber that actually absorbs all the shocks while you are going down the road. It prevents the chucking action and the popping action that occurs while going down the road in certain situations. Now we go to the other half, which actually has a series of holes here, which you can have extra adjustability. So you can actually fine-tune it to your truck and trailer combination. And again, the pivot right here for the turret that gets mounted onto your trailer is right here. Everything else is the same. But also, with this one, on your turret you actually have extra adjustability within the turret itself, so you actually have two points of adjustability to fine-tune your application. Obviously, we have it apart here, still, but the distance between the pivot point and the king pin is going to be roughly about 22 inches.

Now, a few times we have mentioned the turret. This part here is the actual turret itself. This part itself actually gets mounted to the trailer in the original pin box location. Most pin boxes will have multiple holes so you actually may have a little bit of adjustability on this unit. We will go ahead and show you how it gets installed onto the Sidewinder. First off, you install your lube plate here. There are two different versions, depending on the Sidewinder you have - maybe a square one or a round one like this. And once you have that installed, the turret itself goes into place. And then this top plate goes into position. The top plate goes into it and then it gets bolted into position. Once you have these properly torqued down, essentially the Sidewinder and turret become one piece with a pivot point in the middle. And you can see, this is a new pivot point. And there you have it for the Sidewinder Pin Box Couplers from Fifth Gear.