B&W Companion Slider Gooseneck-to-5th-Wheel Trailer Hitch Adapter - Dual Jaw - 20,000 lbs

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

Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a look at the B&W Companion Slider Gooseneck to Fifth Wheel Trailer Hitch Adapter, offering the dual jowls and a 20,000 pound capacity. The part number is BWRVK3400.The B&W Companion Fifth Wheel hitch is going to be the perfect solution to have really the best of both worlds. This is designed to work with the B&W Gooseneck, so when not in use we can have a completely empty and open bed. If we want to haul a gooseneck trailer, we can flip that ball over, be able to connect to that. In the need that we need to haul our fifth wheel camper, this is easily going to slide in and it bolts right down to that underbed gooseneck that you've already got installed.The biggest advantage I see to this particular type of a slider versus other ones available out there on the market is just the way it's going to arrive to you. When you get it, your base is going to be completely assembled.

You'll have to make a few adjustments just on the polyurethane keepers that run down the bottom, but everything is square from the factory. That means when we go from the locked to the unlocked position, you'll see it takes little to no effort to get this moving. As compared to other setups that your base isn't going to come already assembled and already squared up can really be a struggle to get everything in line to where it actually will move freely, and even then, sometimes it requires the camper to move it.Now, if you're looking at a slider setup, it's probably because you have a situation similar to this. You've got a short bed truck and you're worried about the camper making contact with the cab. It's a very real concern, it happens quite a bit.

That's why these are around. With the companion, you can see that gives us a full 12 inches of travel. That's some of the longest travel you're going to get out of any type of slider hitch, really helps to move that camper further back from the rear of the vehicle, reducing the risk of any cab-camper contact.Another thing I really like about the companion system is the lever to operate the slider. You can see it sticks up here nice and high. It's going to be easily accessible, even if you're outside of the truck.

You lift that up into that unlocked position, and then from that point, once you pull away from your camper, once it gets into the locked position our arm's automatically going to come down. We have no pins, no release mechanisms to the lever or anything like that. It's a really good, simple system to use. You'll see coming forward, it's going to work just the same way.The handle's also nice and long. Again, easily accessible from outside the vehicle.

You do have a pin and clip here to secure it in place. That can also be replaced with a lock with a 1/4 inch diameter. You can pass that down through there, so if you don't want the pin, you can lock your camper to your companion. That just is going to slide forward opening those jaws up, and in the open position we'll take our mock king pin here, you can see that's going to slide in place, and with a little bit of force that'll bring our lever right back to the closed position. That has us nice and secure. You'll see, that has the 360 fit, so we're not just grabbing it on the backside, which can eventually just leave the flat spotting of your king pin. It's going to hold it all the way around; front, back, and side to side.With that limited movement, that's really going to help reduce some of that chucking and some of the trailer effects that you feel in your truck. You're going to see that on some of the lesser quality fifth wheels on the market. Now, in the maneuvering position or the rearward position, this is just going to be for your slow speed stuff. You certainly don't want to travel down the highway with it slid back. To travel, we're going to slide it forward, but with the ease of access to the slider I think you're going to be a lot more likely to actually move it back so you can get your maneuvering done, rather than having to go through several steps to get it to slide back, which you might not want to do.Now, the head of our gooseneck is also going to be fully articulating, so like most goosenecks, it has the tip front and back. That side to side is really key for when you're trying to hook up or unhook from your camper on uneven surfaces. If you get a little bit of a pitch one side or the other, those lower quality fifth wheels don't really like to release or accept that king pin.Now, the companion's going to offer heavy duty steel construction made right here in the United States. They've got the unique gray powder coat finish, really helps it stand out from a lot of the competitors out there in the market. With that heavy duty construction, we're going to get a 20,000 pound gross trailer weight rating. It's going to be the maximum weight that we'd want to haul. It's going to give us a 5,000 pound king pin weight, so that's the maximum downward force we can put on top of our hitch. Of course, you do want to check your truck's owner's manual, make sure it's capable of those types of weights. If not, just go off whichever numbers are the lowest.Now, when comparing this slider to other sliders out there on the market, I think the quality in construction is very, very high. Not saying the other sliders aren't made well, I just like the way this one comes and the way it's put together. The way this thing slides forward and back really alleviates a lot of headaches. I like the quality in material, but with that being said, heavy duty material means that it's going to be pretty heavy, so this is going to take two guys, probably, to get it in and out of the truck.I like the square pin design that we have out of the companion. When that square peg goes down into that gooseneck socket, it prevents any of the turning. Now, when comparing that to some of the competitors that have the round peg, movement could be a little bit more of an issue. This is also going to have the greatest travel of any of the sliders out there in the market. You'll see the polyurethane strips in conjunction with that square peg we talked about, going to be pressed firmly down against the bed of the truck, again, resisting any rotation.Now, going with a slider style like the companion, or really any of its competitors, it's a pretty expensive decision to make. Based on the use that we've had here and the customer response that we've had on this setup, it's well worth the investment. Its ease of use really compliments driving and trailering, makes it a little bit easier on you so you're not in and out of the truck bed near as often.Now, to connect the companion to your gooseneck, you're going to see the oblong hole here, and inside we have a retainer. We're going to place that right down in the hole for the shank of our gooseneck ball, place the pin through just by releasing our handle, and then as we tighten the bolt on the top, you'll see how that's going to draw that up and it's going to pull the companion firmly down against the bed of the vehicle. Now, as we tighten down that bolt, you can see our full length strips here that are designed to fit down in the corrugation of the truck. That's going to prevent any twisting or any movement as we travel.Now, with the help of an extra set of hands we can get our companion put down in position. Remember, we're going to place our square peg here, right down in the hole for our gooseneck ball. Now, once we have the companion in place and squared up, we want to take that polyurethane inaudible 00:07:10 we'll want to slide it, you can see right over against the rib of the truck, want to make sure it stays fully seated down in the bottom. Once we have that done on the front and the back, use a 7/16 and tighten down our bolts. Once we have our polyurethane strips tightened down, we'll release the pin allowing that 5/8 pin to come in through the catch, and then it's just a matter of torquing it down to the specifications listed.Another nice feature the companion offers is full adjustability up and down. We can go from 17, 18, or 19 inches of pin height, and we can adjust forward and back. By placing our arms in this position, kind of with the angle going forward, that's going to put us about 1 inch ahead of our post or our securing mechanism. By putting these in the other way, we're going to be about 3 inches behind. Since this is a short bed application, we're going to set it up so that we're going to have a little extra room between the cab and the camper.For the lowest setting we'll use the bottom and middle hole. The middle setting, we'll use the second from the bottom and second from the top. Our highest settings, we use the top hole and the third one down. You'll use the 1/2 inch by 2 inch bolt, want to slip the ring lock washer on there, slide it through the hole, and thread it in position. Now we're going to use four bolts for each arm. We can torque all four of these down to the specifications listed in the instructions.Now, once we have our arms in place, we'll put on our leveling kit. Now, the leveling kit's just going to be a spring. We'll fit that right to our arm using the pressure clip. We want that to be set at the top of our spring, about a 1/2 inch below the bottom of our rubber there. Typically you just use a hammer and kind of get it started, knocked on there. With that, looks like it crept down a little bit, so we'll just kind of tap it up. There, that should be good.Now, the spring's going to rest right up against the head, so even when not in use it's going to help hold that head level, so if you need to connect to your trailer you won't have to worry about your head being tilted the wrong direction. Now, on top of each of our arms you'll see we have polyurethane bushings. As our head sits on there and rotates forward and back, we're not going to have to worry about noise. This is also going to soften the impact of our camper against our truck.Now, for our head, you want to lift up on the two handles with the pins removed, and we'll place that right down and over. You're going to wiggle that down in position until you see your arms drop down, just like that, indicating that you're secure. We'll slide our pins through, those will be secured with our provided clips. Now, the last thing we'll need to do is just get our handle installed.To do that, we'll just remove our pin and clip here, slide our handle in. It's going to align with the two holes furthest in. We'll place through one of our button head bolts there, locking flange nut on the other side. Get those started, then tighten down. For the top here, we'll use a 7/32, the bottom a 9/16. Pin and clip back in there, the handle allows us to easily open the dual jaws. Then as the king pin enters, it's going to press the lever right here on the front, helping to close it. That's going to complete our look at the B&W Companion Fifth Wheel Slider.