B&W Companion Flatbed Gooseneck-to-5th-Wheel Trailer Hitch Adapter - Dual Jaw - 22,000 lbs

Video Transcript for B and W Companion Flatbed Gooseneck-to-5th-Wheel Trailer Hitch Review

Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a look at the B&W Companion Flatbed Gooseneck to Fifth Wheel Hitch Adapter. The part number is BWRVK3050. Now, the companion fifth wheel for flatbeds is really going to give you the best of both worlds in towing. You'll have your gooseneck that's already installed. You want to be sure you have a B&W underbed gooseneck mount hitch installed, and then this is just going to be something you can fit in and get it torqued down with just a single bolt. It really makes it quick and easy to switch between a fifth wheel, if you need it, go back to your gooseneck, and the thing I like about with this fifth wheel when we don't have it installed, we're going to have full access to our truck bed, so it's going to go right back flat, one of the big benefits of that turnover ball system.

We're not going to have a ball sticking up in the middle of the bed or rails running side to side.Now, this particular truck is going to have the CM truck's ER bed. This is going to have the recess in it. The overall width of this is about 18 inches, and they've designed the B&W to fit right down in there. It's going to have a total footprint width of about 17 3/4 inch, and just so you know from the back of it to the front here is about 18 inches. Not only does it work with the recessed style like we have here but also your traditional style flatbed, which would just have a single plane all the way across.Now, we've had a lot of good experiences with the B&W hitch line, but to go a little bit further we like to look through what our customers have to say.

One that really stood out to me was from Greg W. He said, "The hitch works perfectly. Easy in and out when I need the whole truck bed. Awesome product."We've talked about why we would want the flatbed companion. Let's take a little bit deeper look at some of the features and what really sets this style apart from others available on the market.

The one thing I like about this style set up is this is an all-in-one unit. We could find an adapter that we could put down into the gooseneck and secure it down that would have fifth wheel rails. It kind of looks like an H. Then you have to get a fifth wheel head to then put in your truck and add in to those rails. By going this route it's going to give you the solution all-in-one unit with one bolt to tighten down.

You're not going to have multiple steps of getting this in and out, and I really like that.Another thing I really like about this companion set up, and really all of the B&W fifth wheel products are the ease of use with our handles. This is going to have a nice long handle, and right up here it's going to offer a cam lever design. As we open this regardless of how much pressure we're putting on the dual jaws, we'll just release our clip here, and with that long lever and that cam design it makes it really easy to open up our jaws so even if our trailer has a little twist, left or right, maybe it's pulling back a little bit or pushing forward a little bit, it's going to be no issue releasing the jaws.The jaws are also very high quality. You can see they're going to be one inch thick. We've got dual jaws. We have one that's going to come in from each side and we've got a perfectly machined hole here to hold our king pin. What that does is . Put our mock king pin in, it's going to reduce any of that forward and back, or left to right movement. That can lead to that chucking feeling that we sometimes get when starting and stopping but also leads to noise, so by having that nice snug fit we're going to help to eliminate both of those.We also have a fully articulating head. That's going to help to ease when we're hoking up and when we're disconnecting. Not only will it articulate front and back, and you can see if it gets pushed forward it naturally wants to come back to a slightly tilted back position. That makes it easy when hooking up your trailer, but also the side to side. Unfortunately we don't always get to park on level ground or something like that when we need to unhook, and if we have any kind of twist in there, the head will go with that. With that articulation it's going to help to eliminate any issues with our handle being jammed and our king pin getting hung us as we try to unhook.As far as weight ratings go we're going to have a 5500 pound maximum vertical load limit, so that's the maximum force we can put downward on the head, and it's going to offer a 22,000 gross trailer weight rating. That's going to be total weight of our trailer and anything we might load up on it. Of course, you do want to check your owner's manual of your vehicle as well and not exceed its tow rating.Now, when you're ready to remove the system, it's really quite straight forward. You'll want to start by removing the pin and clip located on each side. Now with both those removed we'll lift up on the black handle on each side, lift straight up, and as you can see our pins are going to stay attached. The head's going to ride on the polyurethane bushings we have here on each side. The biggest advantage we're going to have with the polyurethane over the older rubber style is really that these don't deteriorate or get misshapen nearly as much as the rubber did. These are going to last a lot longer. We can put tons of miles on these and we're really not going to have to worry about them wearing out. To remove the base you just want to loosen up the center bolt. That's what holds it down to the bed. At that point we can just lift it up and out.Securing our king pin to our truck bed, you can see the strap right here. That's going to use the pin from our B&W head. It's going to pull down on the fifth wheel. That's going to compress the rubber pads we have on all four corners and ensure a nice, snug fit so we don't have to worry about any twisting.Now, we can show you the installation process. The first thing you'll want to do is retract your pin. Then we can place the base right down and in, and we release our pin. Next you'll want to tighten down your center bolt to the specifications that are listed on the base here and also in your instructions. Next, while using our black levers both to hold the head and keep the locks open we'll slide that down in place, release it and put in our pins. We'll secure those pins with our clips. Once we have both sides done we'll be ready to hook up our trailer, and we can hit the road.Now, for additional security we can replace the handle locking pin with the standard lock. You'll want to use a 5/16 inch diameter shank. It will need to be at least an 1 1/4 inch deep, and at least 3/4 inch wide. The opening should be at least 3/4 inch and that should be at least an 1 1/4 inch tall to make the connection.That's going to complete our look at the B&W Companion Flatbed gooseneck to Fifth Wheel Hitch Adapter, part number BWRVK3050.