by "Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
Published 09/04/2017 at 14:30
by "Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
Published 09/04/2017 at 14:30
Tags: RV
; recreational vehicle
; trailer
; camper
; caravan
; hitch
STARS: 0
I ran across a new term that I guess I’m going to have to add to my glossary.
Somehow I’ve managed to get this far without ever hearing of a “bumper pull” trailer. I even worked at a couple of RV places, and this term never came up. Trailers were only referred to as “5th wheels”, “travel-trailers”, and the less-common gooseneck . (Yes, we’d call pop-ups “pop-ups”, but for the most part, trailers were designated by their method of attachment.)
Upon hearing the term “bumper pull”, I started to imagine a trailer that was light enough to be pulled by a truck’s bumper, without the need for an actual receiver hitch underneath said bumper. But it turns out that “bumper pull” is just another way of saying “travel trailer”. That is, a trailer that hooks up to a ball mounted to the rear of the tow vehicle.
Now to be fair, “travel trailer” is a pretty awful name. Taken literally, it could apply to any trailer with wheels on it. The only thing the name does to set itself apart is the “travel” part, which serves to distinguish it from the “mobile homes” you might see in a trailer park.
Come to think of it, “5th wheel” isn’t very descriptive either, is it? It does nothing to communicate the up-and-over arrangement of the pin box, or the kingpin attachment point. All it does is lend a sense that the trailer is an accessory to the tow vehicle. EDIT: The “5th wheel” is actually horizontal here. See bhtooefr’s reply below (I shoulda checked Wikipedia first haha)
Goosenecks, well they’re a little of both. Like “5th wheel”s, they attach over the axle, but the attachment point employs a ball like your standard bumper pull travel trailer. However, if you look at the name gooseneck , it seems to be partly in reference to the up-and-over arrangement of the front frame and coupler assembly to reach the center of the truck’s bed, and partly in reference to how it reaches further down into the bed than a 5th wheel’s pin box. In a way, I guess you could say that a 5th wheel could be a variety of gooseneck.
Speaking of hitches, what is a hitch anyway? I’ve seen receivers, ball-mounts, and couplers all referred to as hitches, yet the H-word is left out of the image below, giving way to more specific terms:
I have to admit, in my time in the RV business, I grew fond of using the word “hitch” to describe the receiver. I’ve also used the word in reference to the articulating assembly mounted in the truck’s bed, into which the 5th wheel’s kingpin slides. But perhaps “hitch” is better off used as a verb, and its noun usage avoided altogether. Thoughts?
Oh, and don’t get me started on motorhome classification. (too late haha)
You’ve got your class A, class B, and class C motorhomes, yet somehow they don’t follow an alphabetical hierarchy. The large bus-type rigs are class
A
, the medium sized boxes with a van sticking out of the front are class
C
, and your pimped-out super-conversion-vans are class
B
. Who came up with this?
Are there any other terms that you’ve encountered for these things? Is “caravan” is a superior word to “trailer” (despite its modern familiarity with Chrysler minivans)? If we had to start all over again and come up with new names to fix this mess once and for all, what terminology would you use?
"Dusty Ventures" (dustyventures)
09/04/2017 at 12:37, STARS: 0
Edit: the A, B, C designation relates to their weight class and is based on the commercial truck license required for a vehicle of each class. (Though of course that license isn’t required for RVs)
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
09/04/2017 at 12:48, STARS: 3
Fifth-wheels are called that because they literally were a fifth wheel in the past:
In the livestock trailer world, I’ve only heard “bumper pull” and “gooseneck” - bumper pull being hitched roughly where the bumper is, gooseneck being hitched in the bed.
As far as “the hitch”, although everything I’ve dealt with has been bumper pull, I’ve seen it used primarily to describe the chunk of steel that bolts to the frame and gives you a receiver tube.
And, finally, the classifications... yeah, I dunno. I suspect the system made sense at first - class A if it was fully coachbuilt, class B if it was a stock body, maybe with a high or popup roof. But, then, partial coachbuilt vehicles (like Toyota campers in the 1970s and 1980s, and now vans with a custom rear body) just screwed that all up, so they figured “class C”, I’d guess? And then, you have class B+, which is really class C, but it’s designed to look like it’s class B by blending into the van’s bodywork.
"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
09/04/2017 at 12:52, STARS: 0
I never even thought of a horizontal wheel. Nice find!
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
09/04/2017 at 12:53, STARS: 0
Except Class B is smaller than Class C, typically - Class B is just a van, whereas Class C is a semi-coachbuilt van-based vehicle.
"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
09/04/2017 at 12:54, STARS: 0
(Yeah that licensing thing is a whole ’nother troublesome issue)
I think you might be onto something with the commercial trucking angle, but that B is still a problem.
"ShrimpHappens, née WJalopy" (bakeshake)
09/04/2017 at 13:01, STARS: 1
It wasn’t that long ago that “receiver hitches” weren’t common and hitch balls were directly mounted to the bumper in front of the license plate. Hence, “bumper-pull.”
"Dash-doorhandle-6 cyl none the richer" (dash-doorhandle-and-bondo)
09/04/2017 at 13:51, STARS: 2
And they’re all shameless garbage that makes the car business look saintly. (former rv warranty bitch) FUCKING FILTHY INDUSTRY!. I’ll let myself out now......
"gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee" (gogmorgo)
09/04/2017 at 14:42, STARS: 1
Hitch is the noun that applies to the entire assembly of components attaching the two vehicles. “Hitch” itself is a term used to designate an attachment of two objects, an example being the “hitching post” where you tie up your horse, and another being that many knots are refered to as “hitches”.
Traditionally (50 years or so ago), in the era of solid steel girder bumpers that served to protect the vehicle from receiving any damage at all in a collision, all “bumper pull” hitches would have been mounted directly to the bumper. You could even get temporary hitches for almost any car, truck, can, etc, that were only clamped or strapped to the bumper, without any part of the hitch system passing through the bumper itself at all. It’s only with bumpers becoming more decorative, and the emergence of crash standards and prevention of damage to passengers (instead of the vehicle) that a requirement for a separate attachment point for the tow vehicle’s part of the hitch system has emerged.
As far as vocabulary goes, for a receiver hitch, I’ve always refered to the receiver being the part of the hitch (with the crossbar and tube) that receives the draw bar, which is what the ball mounts into. But at the same time “draw bar” also refers to any solid bar used in a hitching system for pulling along its length, such as some implement or heavy duty hitching systems that have a bar articulating at both ends between the two vehicles. Like say a pintos system, where frequently the tow vehicle essentially has a large hook, the draw bar has a loop at the tow vehicle end, and an up-and-down pivot at the trailer end, often solidly mounted to a pivoting axle, like a fifth-wheel dolly would be.
"Bowtie_Guy" (thatbowtieguy)
09/04/2017 at 14:52, STARS: 1
Growing up as a farm kid “bumper pull” was an early part of my lexicon. When it comes to a horse trailer or flatbed you have either “Gooseneck” or “Bumper pulls” to hook up to... always made sense to me...
Where I am from a “5th wheel” refers to a large “camper” & a “camper” is what you call a travel trailer (I can see how that can be confusing)
"Urambo Tauro" (urambotauro)
09/04/2017 at 15:55, STARS: 0
“Hitch” being the entire assembly... I like that.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
09/04/2017 at 23:31, STARS: 1
I think travel trailer is really a broad term for any camper that’s pulled by another vehicle. Bumper pull, 5th wheel, and goose neck are subcategories. All I know for sure, is they’re all built like hot garbage.
"vicali" (vicali)
09/05/2017 at 13:11, STARS: 1
Alright, now that that’s all cleared up let’s talk about something super basic that everyone can understand; tow ratings.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
09/05/2017 at 22:44, STARS: 1
A hitch means to tie off, secure. So “hitch” just became slang for hooking a vehicle to a trailer. Its really a receiver or drawbar. Though I will concede that RV/towing nomenclature is all over the map
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
09/05/2017 at 22:51, STARS: 1
speaking of bumper pull I remember my grandpa’s then dads 2nd gen 4runner that had balls on the bumper, a 2 inch center and a 1 1/4 off center. They still do bumpers this way and they are (were) rated to tow some weight, but usually no more than 3500 or so lbs. it was also the age of these
Since the ball stayed on the bumper you needed something to prevent you from greasing your pants or knocking into it. I haven’t seen tennis ball/ball covers in a long time.