Custom Installation Kit w/ Base Rails for Demco SL Series 5th Wheel Trailer Hitches

Video Transcript for Demco’s Experts Explain Easy Custom Fit Fifth-Wheel Hitch Installation

Hello neighbors, it's Brad here from Etrailer. And today I'm in Boyden, Iowa at the Demco headquarters and manufacturing facility where we got to see Demco products made. And these are all products that I handle on a daily basis when doing flat tows, fifth wheels, or even couplers. They cover so many different towing products and they have plenty of experts here to break down some of their products a little bit more to give you some understanding as well as allow me to ask those questions on products that I handle every day. So Verlin, when it comes to getting a fifth wheel installed into a truck. Nowadays there's the OEM prep package or the puck system.

Yep. But I have an older truck and I still want to tow a fifth wheel. What's the best way to do that Well, absolutely. So Demco offers the industry standard bed rail option. So as you can see here, we've got a set of the industry standard bed rails.

From there, we have frame bracket that fit specifically to any year make and model truck that you have, basically. We do go back quite a number of years and we also have a lot of no drill options. That makes it a lot easier. Yeah, a lot of those brackets being custom designed to a vehicle means it's gonna use factory holes to bolt up. You got it.

That's exactly right. So wherever we can, we're using factory holes in the frame to bolt up those brackets onto the frame of the truck. Of course, we do have just four holes that we need to drill at the end of the rails to drop the bolts in, but otherwise, yeah, very easy installs. Now you mentioned ISR standard, I know what that is, but what is ISR standard Okay, so I'll talk a little bit about industry standard rails. You'll see here that's the slots here in the rails that the hitches pin into.

And so you'll find most manufacturers, not all but a majority of us have what we call industry standard rails. And that means the spacing here with the slots where the hitch actually pins in are all standard. And so you can take a Demco hitch and put it into another manufacturer's bed rails or you can take another manufacturer's hitch and put it into our bed rails. That makes sense. And I have done quite a few rail installation kits. It does help to have a fifth wheel base at least to do that, correct Absolutely, so yeah, you'll wanna put your fifth wheel in as you're doing the install and get the fifth wheel pinned in and that way you'll get the exact alignment for the rails in the bed of the truck. Yeah, and there's little tolerances between them all. So yeah, having the proper one that you're gonna be using makes a lot of sense. Absolutely, yep. And in fact, we have the recon here. Yeah, so we'll talk a little bit about our recon. So this is a little bit different than what most people are used to with the fifth wheel, it's more of a pyramid designed base. And what we did there is instead of using the outer slots of the rails, we use the middle set of slots on the industry standard rails. Gives the user a little more room in the bed of their truck, also makes this hitch real lightweight. So we're looking at just under 100 pounds for this hitch. And that's nice too because you know if you use your truck as a full on truck, a lot of times those fifth wheels take up a ton of space. And I'm telling you the footprint on this compared to some of the other ones out there, you're right, you could still use your truck bed. But if you do have to take it out 100 pounds, it's a one person job, Right, absolutely. So what we can do is we can pop the head off of this hitch and I'll just give, kinda give you a real little example here. We'll pull this pin. The head of the hitch weighs 35 pounds and that can be taken out by one individual set off to the side. Pull the four pins here and then the base can be lifted right out too. What I like to do is throw the pin back in that you just had the head attached with and here you've got your carry handle, the carry right outta the bed of your truck. Brad That's a feature right there, I like that. Now I see some blue in here. Is that urethane Verlin Yeah, there's a couple little urethane bumpers in here. What that does is as you're traveling down the road without the trailer on and the head will tip back and forth over the road, so you don't have that clunkiness of the head of the hitch. Also, on the bottom side of the hitch, you'll see we've got one of those blue rubber bumpers as well. And what that does is it keeps the head tilted back so you're always ready for hookup and it dampens that noise again when you're not towing. Got the wraparound jaw system as well with the lock bar that goes across the side there to keep everything nice and secure. Brad Why is that something that someone would want It's an extra added security for number one and number two, we go fully around 360 degrees around that kingpin. So we help eliminate some of the chucking. You're probably familiar with some competitors. They've got more of a clam shelf style and that just gives a little more opportunity for chucking to begin rather than a full wraparound. So with the ISR rails, a lot of times it's gonna be custom fit bracket to Ford, Chevy, and all the years in between. How do you guys even go about making those goods All right, well Demco has got relationships with local dealers around and as well customers. So what we do is we try to find the trucks as soon as they hit the lot and get 'em into our facility. We also use a software that we do get from SEMA and get some of the basic frame information on the auto manufacturers from SEMA and use that as well to help design 'em. But one thing we always do is we'll do our design work ahead of time and then we actually get the truck just to verify everything fits. And if you're unfamiliar with putting rails in your truck, those custom fit brackets they're talking about, it's gonna sandwich around the frame of the truck. I mean you're towing quite a bit of weight down the road. And it's gonna go directly to the frame and then go to the rails up top on that bed, allow you to drop in that fifth wheel. And after seeing your guys' manufacturing facility, I got to see these made in America. Verlin Made right here in the USA, right in Boyden, Iowa. Verlin, huge thanks for taking the time to show us Demco's ISR rails for fifth wheel as well as the recon. Absolutely, appreciate you guys stopping by. Thank you.