Question on gooseneck

[Chris611]

Thanks for all the tips guys. Kepp em coming. I went home and looked and the ball is ahead of the rear axle by 4-6". Everything is tight. The clank that I am hearing is the actual removable ball. It's a ball on a square shaft that sticks in the bed. I grab the ball and move it for and aft and it moves about .015" and you can hear it clank. I will try and get the trailer hooked up tomorrow and check the rake from front to back and make sure I have 2". If all that checks out, I will just assume I need air bags or something to help the ride. We are driving 2-300 miles per weekend truck pulling and the wife isn't going to handle that much jarring every weekend. She's already complaining about it. And as the saying goes, "If momma ain't happy, ain't noone happy..." .

Thanks
Chris

 

[Diamondpilot]

I have tightened up a ball mount like yours by laying down small beads of weld on all 4 sides then slowly dress it out with a aggressive file and then using a flap wheel sanding disc on the angle grinder to finish it out.

Chris

 

[wmonroe]

Just throwing ideas out there but could the jerking feeling be axle wrap?

 

[radman1]

It maybe the jerking sensation is due to a combination of heavier weight of trailer, 14K stiff axles/springs, the GN hitch and road surface. My 30' 25k GN will shake my truck good on certain cement highways. Much more than my 24', 14K bumper pull on the same road. My lighter bumper pull trailers on the same road are not very noticeable. GN's seem to transmit the feel of a rough road more than my bumper pull trailers. Some cement roads have an inherent rough surface due to heavy truck traffic. The OP may just be noticing all the above effects compared to his bumper pull. The jerking sensation is much less on asphalt highways.

 

[voltar0675]

Have a 25 foot gooseneck Pro-Track trailer and pull it with 3/4 short bed cummins. Pulled my 5500 4wd Mahindra tractor with front end loader and Rhino rotary cutter and yeah it bucks pretty good on rough roads, not so much on smooth hwy. I bagged it and that appeared to help quite a bit.

 

[Chris611]

Update: Well I have been messing around with the placement of the pullnig truck on the trailer. I tried running it all the way forward and that didn't help any. So then I tried placing it farther back on the trailer and presto, the truck quit jerking. It was a night and day difference. I was looking at some of the other trailers in the pits and noticed that some have the axles farther ahead than mine. My axles are way back towards the dovetail section of the trailer. I don't have an actual number of what the pin weight is now, but the truck still feels stable with the load. The only down side is that I now have to drive the truck onto the trailer, flip the ramps and then back up a foot. The ramps won't clear the rear of the truck when it's back.

Thanks
Chris

 

[wmonroe]

Thats good you got it cleared up. Load placement can be difficult but very important to how will the rig handles.