Video Transcript for Detailed Breakdown of the Demco Recon 5th Wheel Hitch w/ Slider

Hi there, I'm Michael with etrailer.com. Today we're gonna take a quick look at this Demco Recon manual slide 5th wheel trailer hitch. Now this is a 5th wheel hitch that's gonna mount into your short bed RAM twenty five hundred and thirty five hundred. So you can tow your 5th wheel trailer. This is going to have the manual slide on it. So oftentimes with your shorter bed pickup trucks, it's hard to tow your 5th wheel trailer, because if you get into a tight spot where you need to make a tight turn, you have limited clearance there before you have contact between your trailer and your cab.

So having a slider like this, is going to give you more clearance, so you can make those slow, tight turns. And the way this works, once you find yourself in that situation, you'll get outta your truck. We've got the handle here that will allow us to pull it out of the locked mode, put it into the slider mode, and then this will move back towards your tailgate up to 14 inches. So you can make that tighter turn, have that clearance that you need, and then when you get everything straightened back out, you can simply get back outta your truck again, move it into the locked position, and that's going to put the weight of your trailer exactly where it needs to be above your axle so that you can travel safely at highway speeds again and that sort of thing. Now, when you're looking at systems like this, you have your manual set up.

or you also have auto slides. So those are going to save you the hassle of having to get out of your truck, put it into your sliding position, and then put it back in when you're done. Those are gonna be a lot more convenient for you, but they're also a lot more expensive. So if you, it doesn't quite fit in your price range, this is gonna give you that same functionality, but it is going to require a little bit more effort for you. This model specifically does, is made here in the USA, of a very sturdy steel construction.

So it is gonna hold up really well for you. It's got a black powder coat finish to help resist rust and corrosion. That steel construction is going to give us the 21,000 pound gross towing weight. It also has a vertical load limit of 5,250 pounds. So keep that in mind.

Make sure that it's gonna work for your trailer set up. And this is designed specifically for your 2013 and newer RAM 2500 and 3500. Now with the factory, or OEM prep package. Now I've got these side rails loosely installed here, and that's why they're kind of hanging down. Obviously you'll want to tighten these bolts before you get it installed. But what this is gonna do for you, it's gonna allow you to use that factory prep package. So you'll just open up these feet here, to the open position. That will allow you to simply set this down into your factory pucks, and then you'll slide that arm back in place, and put your pin on to lock it in place. And that's gonna give you that solid connection to your factory puck system. So you've already got that installed on your ram. This will allow you to take advantage of it, and have that nice solid connection. Our head here does have the wraparound single piece jaw that's gonna provide that nice secure connection, between the hitch and your kingpin on your trailer. Having that 360 degree contact between your jaw and the kingpin, is going to create less rattling, and more security than your slide bar jaws. We'll open it up here, so you can kind of see how this operates. So we've got it in the open locked position. So you'll put it in that position, then you'll start backing up your truck to your trailer. I've got a screwdriver here to kind of simulate your kingpin on your trailer. So that's gonna slide in place. Make contact with this back plate here. And that will allow it to close. When we have it closed there, you can see we've got that three quarter inch thick solid steel locking bar. That's going to reinforce your connection with your coupled trailer. It's gonna automatically lock in place when the jaw closes, give you extra reassurance that it's not going to go anywhere. We're operating that with the spring loaded handle here, with the comfort grip. It's going to allow you to very simply get coupled up. This also has the tethered safety pin, so you can lock the arm in the open or closed position, and it's tethered, sp make sure you don't lose it. This system does use a double pivot hitch head. And that's going to help ease your hook-up, and help to limit chucking while you're traveling. We'll pivot front and back, as well as side to side. If I can turn this a little bit to the side, you can see that inside here, we do have those cushioning polyurethane dampeners that help to reduce your noise and absorb road shock, to give you a nice smooth ride. Moving our way down, we've got our pin down here that's going to pass through one of three different height adjustment holes. Now you have those three different height settings to accommodate your setup. Make sure that your trailer is going to clear your side bed rails. So at our tallest setting, we're sitting at about 20 and seven eighths of an inch. Down at the middle setting, we're about 19 and five eighths of an inch. And then at the lowest setting, it's about 18 and three eighths of an inch. So again, make sure that it's gonna work for your setup. So overall, I think this is gonna be a a great way to go. Like I said, if the auto slide is just simply too expensive for you, this is still going to give you that functionality so that you can make those tight turns, and it's going to take advantage of your Rams OEM prep package, to make that connection very simple for you. And that completes our look for today. Again, I'm Michael with etrailer.com. Thanks for watching.