Video Transcript for Talking Safer Smoother Towing with Shocker Hitch

Hey there neighbors, Tim here with Etrailer. And today we have Jim in from Shocker Hitch and he's here today to tell us a little bit more about the products they offer and how those can enhance your towing and camping experience. And for this specific video, we are gonna mostly be focusing on trailer specific attachments. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about Shocker Hitch and then we can lead into this fifth wheel gooseneck pin you got here. Yeah, thank you Kevin. The mission is safer, smoother towing every mile.

And to accomplish that, we have some unique technology. This is kind of an exciting category. And the trailer side with the pin boxes, we can do a couple different things here. We can take an existing fifth wheel and turn it to air, or in this case with the example we're looking at here, we can take this pin box and convert it to a gooseneck ride with both with air and in along with the mission of safer, smoother towing, it turns out that nothing rides like air. The benefit that we're gonna experience is the best in the market that we're aware of, of a reduction of that motion that causes ride disruption to control, to comfort, to safety, restores it to the best possible scenario there.

Yeah, so in this case, we're looking at the fifth wheel to gooseneck conversion. This one features our shift lock coupler, which is a 2-5/16". We also have this available in a quick latch Demco model as well. And then that's a matter of just customer preference. Do you like the security of shifting that in place and knowing that it's done Do you like the option of having the auto latch from the Demco piece there and.

Then, yeah, I know for my dad he, he is a little shorter, so getting up in the truck to run the latch, he definitely probably would want to go with that Demco. So. Perfect. For those of you at home, if you don't know what we're talking about, the Demco latch is one where it's just gonna kind of auto pop up on you as you go to put that ball on. So like what he was saying, it's super simple, really quick to pop on versus nothing wrong with this latch, but you obviously you have to get up into the bed, you know, To release it, correct.

Yeah, Needs access to it so. And then there's a customer who just has that extra peace of mind by knowing that they locked the thing in place. Yeah. Right. So we want have options available. So with our technology, with air ride, I mean airbags have been on the road for over 70 years and used in various forms and with this particular design and true across our platform when we're talking about air ride is there's a transfer of energy back and forth, back and forth between the thing that's pulling and the thing that's being pulled. When the airbag is introduced, it absorbs more of that energy than the other mediums that are traditionally used, which is either a hard point connection, which is, you know, coupler and ball, right Or some sort of a shock absorption that involves a rubber puck or a intermediary kind of thing. Jounce spring. Jounce support. That kind of thing. And really where we shine is in these categories of towing is when you get that back and forth motion 'cause if you think about it going over the road when your tires hit an obstacle, we think about it as going up and down and it does go up and down, but the first force, the first motion is the impact against whatever it's going to go over, right Yeah. And that's where our designs really stand out because it's that back and forth motion that can cause a lot of the ride disruption that can be corrected by using a system like this so. All right, so since we have a airbag back here, I know a lot of time when we're doing airbags on trucks, we're also throwing a compressor on is this something where I should have a compressor with me Am I gonna be airing up and down a lot Is there gonna be a lot of work to essentially go along with this to have this function properly It's a great question. You can air this up and down with almost anything from a bicycle pump to a portable compressor on some of the bumper tow stuff, we have like a compressor set up that you can hook up to it if you really want to, but it's really not necessary. I find that portable handheld stuff is generally the most helpful and this from the gooseneck standpoint or from a pin box standpoint is going to air differently than when we get to the bumper section. So in this case, if you have a question about airbag and PSI where you wanna start and the product is labeled as such that if you start with about 15 to 20 pounds and then kind of adjust to taste, right So it doesn't take you very long to find that sweet spot that performs in the optimal way and then you never really have to vary that much, right Okay, is this something where I should, when now, hey I'm putting my trailer in storage, should I release some of that air out of the bag or I need it I don't think you have to, but it's not gonna hurt if you, when we store and ship, like we're leaving a little bit of air in that bag. So if you are going to depressurize it, I don't think you need to take anything out of it. Important maintenance aspects are, you know, to not lose your shrader cap valve, right Because that is possible I guess. And then this little grease circuit up here is a pivot point. It's pre-greased from the factory and it's not a sealed container so you can't over grease it, but it really only needs one shot per year, maybe two. Okay, well, that's definitely useful Unless it's under constant use. Yeah. So we're saying, kind of what we do with like bearings. We're saying, you know, at minimum once a year or every so many thousands of miles, is there a certain mileage you'd recommend to start putting a little bit more grease in I would say if you're towing seasonally, just give it a shot when you put it away, give it a shot when you take it out. If it's under constant use for someone who's more in motion all of the time, maybe you're looking at, you know, giving a little grease every three months. Okay. Yeah. All right, so now we've taken a look at this. Why don't we go outside, we'll look at some other trailer mounted options that you guys offer. All right, now we're outside, we are out at a gooseneck trailer here where we can take a look at the gooseneck surge from Shocker Hitch. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about this and let's talk about fitment 'cause I know there's a lot of different options when it comes to hooking up to your actual gooseneck trailer. Thank you, yeah, thank you for bringing that up. So once upon a time in the industry, there was four inch round and four inch square and then there was a hundred millimeter round and a hundred millimeter square. So you had both of those layers of complexity and then they started changing pin angles. So what started as straight through, I imagine someone on a Friday afternoon drilled them at 10 degrees and then that's the way it was forever, right So then there was a different, the the different complexities with the pin angles and every time a layer of complexity was added to that, you get a little bit further away from getting the right thing in the right place at the right time for that customer, right So we're pretty excited at Shocker Hitch to be able to offer a patent pending multi-fit stem in both round and square that fits a hundred millimeter round or square, four inch round or square and in round, accommodates all of those various pin angles that we see. And it fits almost everything that's being made right now, which as you can imagine, makes it much, much easier to get the right product in the right place at the right time. Yeah, and then if I wanna swap trailers, maybe my next trailer doesn't have that same connection style, then I know, hey I can transfer it right on over. The likelihood of that happening is very, very high. We can take that hitch from trailer to trailer if that's the case, yes. I see a lot of pins here when we talk about pin location and how this all comes together and the multi-fit, how exactly, you know, what are we talking about here I know these look like they're set screws essentially. Correct You got two different pins here. Yep, yep. What are we talking about here It's, let's define that, yes. So you got set screws, you got a sleeve and you got a stem that goes in the sleeve and then this is the pin angle that has some variance in it across different platforms depending on manufacturer when they might have been manufactured. And so internally we have a little slot that accommodates for that. But when you put that pin in, then you use this as a guide to get to the correct clocking angle for this pin. And then from there, once we have those pins in, we're gonna come back and then snug it down with that. Correct. Okay. Yep. So super easy installation. Something we could probably do with just maybe one extra guy. You're not lifting, you know, Holding much. You're lifting the whole thing and correct, and just so you know, we pre grease these couplers from the factory. We take the time to do that 'cause we believe in greasing the ball, it prolongs the life of the ball, it prolongs the life of the coupler. So just be aware of that if you're lifting this that there's grease in there so. Don't wanna get that all over. Correct. Yeah. But it looks like this is gonna be the same kind of setup as it was with our pin box one too, where we just have that one grease point here, our airbags at the back with that air fitting. So should be pretty much the same exact design. Is there gonna be a, is there a Demco latch for this one as well or is this only with this style latch There is a Demco latch available here as well. And the setup that we're looking at with either shift lock or Demco is a 30,000 pounds with the 7,000 pounds of tongue weight, there's a natural three inch offset here. There is an extra six inches, so a nine inch offset available if it's wanted or needed. But we drop that tongue weight down to 6,000 pounds and keep the 30,000 pound rating. And just for options, we can also go up to 40,000 pounds with a square stem and either and a shift lock coupler with air and we have some great non-air options as well. All right, now we've stepped over one trailer here. Now instead of a gooseneck or a fifth wheel, we have our, you know, bumper mount style trailer here. But we have a different design with our connection point here. Can you gimme a little bit of a run through on how this one functions Sure, yeah, so first of all, it's not always an option to put air ride on the vehicle that's doing the towing. So we want to have the ability to put that on a trailer and sometimes it's in the customer's best interest to have it here rather than on the vehicle in the first place, so you might think of a fleet manager's got three different trucks and hook up to that trailer during the week. This is where he wants this solution. Yeah, so you're not spending thousands of dollars on all those different vehicles. Correct. You're saving it by just putting it right here. Correct. And in the industry for trailer mounts, everybody seems to be either using a channel style, which is the uniform width here, or we also have a four bolt front that fits on those standard bolt patterns as well. We can go up to 25,000 pounds here if we use a Wallace Forge coupler. This Demco as we see it, is a 21,000 pound gross towing capacity set up. And the idea now when we talk about some of the symptoms that happen as a result of a hard point coupling with a coupler on ball, you think of one thing with a little utility trailer going down the road bouncing around, you don't really feel it but you hear it. Now when you get a bigger trailer with stiffer axles, you're gonna stiffer suspension and think about the vehicle. Now that's towing this trailer is also a bigger vehicle. We're gonna get into those three quarter one ton and dump truck type of platforms, which also has a stiffer suspension. So that problem has just magnified itself and now it's on a scale where you can really break stuff. Yeah. Right So if, if it's possible that something like this can reduce that stress wear tear, which Shocker Hitch was born out of, right Literally breaking a tongue hitch or a tongue and then in developing a product to help solve that, it might be a capital savings to do something like this and get an extra six months, 12 months, 24 months out of the unit with less maintenance type of thing. All right, so now with the goosenecks, when we're airing those up, we're starting at like that 15 PSI range and then incrementally going up as needed. Yes. With this one, how am I wanting to air this up Should I start at that 15 and then keep going in increments or is this one where I need to put a lot more in it All right, so great question. And with all of our products, we kind of have the same uniform idea, which is I'm gonna have my installation, I'm gonna have my loaded trailer connected to the vehicle and then I'm going to add air, and that's always true, in this case, we're gonna work off a visual setting and the visual setting is designed to accommodate for those times when you can't know exactly what that tongue weight is. But I can get the perfect ride out of it every time by knowing where my visual setting is on this piece by adding or or deleting air as the case may be, right So once this is hooked up and loaded and everything, these expanded lock washers, in this case, once I start to add air, I'm going to add air until they are compressed against the head of that bolt/ And that's it That is it. That's all you gotta do A hundred percent. Super easy. Perfect ride every time, yep. Okay, I know there was one other thing with this you we inchesre saying in our class yesterday, because it says a forward leaning tilt that makes it super important, we decide what coupler we're using. This forward lean is designed for just an optimal performance, but thank you for bringing that up because we want to know what sort of coupler our customer might be putting on this. We're happy to sell them that Demco that you can bolt in here if they want the 21,000 pound rating. But some couplers have a release that is back here and that forward-leaning design might interfere with the coupler performance. So if I'm selling one of these, I also want to ask what coupler they're intending to use or if I can sell them one that I know is going to work well for them and avoid that, you know, Finding out after the fact. Correct. Yeah. And then having to wait for a new part. All right, so it sounds like no matter what your connection style is, whether it is that bumper mount with the channel, a flat facing your goosenecks, your fifth wheels like we had inside, it seems like there is gonna be some sort of way for Shocker Hitch to introduce air into that ride. So that way you're getting that nice smooth ride quality. So I do wanna say thanks for showing up here and giving not only me, but everyone else here at etrailer great teaching yesterday. So that way we can help provide better knowledge for you guys at home so that way you can really have that safer, smoother towing like you we inchesre talking about. So once again, thanks for coming in. Thank you for joining us on the mission. Oh yeah. Appreciate it Jim. Safer, smoother towing every mile. That's the mission. Yeah. Thanks for partnering. Now if you're in the questioning phase, trying to figure out exactly which was going to be the right fit for you, you can definitely feel free to reach out with those questions to us via Ask The Experts link, comment on this video or a phone call to our customer service department and we can help you out on that journey. Now if you're past that phase and now you're into that installation portion of it and you don't feel like doing it yourself or you just physically can't get that done yourself, then definitely feel free to check out our installer locator and you'll be able to enter in your zip code to find a shop near you and get this professionally installed so that way you have that safer, smoother ride quality.