I’ve been waiting for some of the new bumper replacements to hit the market for the 2019s, and now there are a couple good options.
Option one is the Ranch Hand Sport, which is more or less the same bumper I had on my old truck, but with the addition of the winch mount. While I don’t currently have any plans to use this truck in any situations that might warrant a winch, I always regretted not spending the extra $200 or so to not limit myself with the old truck, and don’t want to have regrets with this one.
Ranch Hand Sport on the 2013-2018 DRW, which is very similar. The bumper will have a couple slight differences but retains the overall look and feel.
The second option is built by Buckstop Bumpers. It is significantly more expensive but looks more refined, and comes in multiple color options. Below is a picture of their Outback series, which is the one I like the best. It has a hidden winch mount inside the bumper, and all the features of the Ranch Hand. Everything is optional on it as they’re custom made – you can choose from round or square fog lights, for example, both which have to be aftermarket because the factory ones won’t work, whether or not to have the hidden winch, the receiver, the design of the bars, and the finish. Lots of options. The picture below is the Outback, with 6″ and 4″ fog lights, a hidden winch, a flush mount 2″ receiver, and black hammertone finish on a 2019 DRW.
Here is a photo of the Outback for the 2013-2018 trucks, in silver, with the rectangular fog light option:
And another one of a 2013-2018 DRW, with two tone finish, 4″ and 6″ fog lights, and a winch installed. I was considering a black base with silver uprights:
I really like the dark base/ chrome contrast on this Ford version. I reached out to them about it and they don’t offer chrome, but unpolished stainless steel, for an extensive up-charge I’m not willing to pay for and then you can get it polished locally. While I like it, I don’t believe I like it enough to pay an $850 premium, plus polishing. It also has the single 6″ fog light, instead of adding the 4″ aux light.
With all the options here – should I save the money and go for the Ranch Hand, or spend the extra for a truly custom, more refined option with custom features from Buckstop? What options do you think I should go with – please let me know directly, or leave comments.
After several weeks of waiting, and very poor communication from the manufacturer, I finally received this cover. The cover was on back order but nobody informed me – I had to call and ask them for a status update after a few days of waiting. Then, they kept telling me “2-3” weeks even as, two, and then three weeks passed. It finally shipped at around three weeks, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of communication in my book. I would have canceled the order had it not been the only cover on the market that checks off all my requirements.
I wanted a cover that provides easy toolbox access, does not restrict the toolbox lid, is secure (a hard cover) so it can be used as additional storage, stores small enough not to obstruct a fifth wheel, and doesn’t take up a large portion of the bed or the back window when stored.
It took a couple hours to install – much longer than anticipated. It isn’t difficult, just tedious, and working in the hot sun slowed me down a bit.
The cover sits over the rails and is divided into four, roughly 2ft, sections. The front and rear sections can be opened independently, and the center sections can be opened along with the rear and stacked on top of the front to free up 6′ of bed space. Since the front section can be opened without having to touch the rear or the center, it means that I have incredibly easy toolbox, aux-tank, and OBA access when needed.
It stacks neatly and securely behind the cab, and takes up ever-so-slightly more room than the toolbox. It provides plenty of clearance for the fifth wheel, which I have sitting about 7.5″ above the bed rails, and it doesn’t even cross this section except in tight backing.
Overall, I recommend this cover on its own merits but found the ordering process and communication from the manufacturer, and seemingly sole-source vendor, lackluster. Fortunately, I probably won’t have to deal with them again now that it has been received and installed, and that won’t be an issue.
We picked up the trailer today and drove around a bit with the suspension on the truck configured as it comes from the factory. The trailer rode well on flat, smooth surfaces but would pulse violently on expansion joints or other sudden bumps. Once we got it home, I started trying to diagnose the issue and found an obvious culprit.
The lower overload was barely making contact, and would be momentarily engaged when when hitting a bump but otherwise not utilized. A conventional lower overload configuration consists of a thick, flat spring called an overload leaf, and a spring pack above it that will only make contact with the overload leaf when there is sufficient weight on it to flatten it out. It looks like this, minus the silver aftermarket components that are attached to the overload leaf.
A traditional lower overload with a StableLoad added.
There is a company called TorkLift, who makes a product called StableLoad, to take up the slack between the spring pack and the lower overload. More on that later.
For some reason, Ram uses a non-conventional design for the lower overload on my truck. TorkLift, and other vendors who provide similar items, do not have products out for it yet. A universal StableLoad won’t fit the profile or meaningfully fill the gap between the springs, so that is out. I called them and it doesn’t even sound like they’ve looked at one of these trucks yet.
One thing about filling the gap is that if you fill it to the point where the lower overload is engaged when the truck is empty, it will make for an extremely uncomfortable or possibly even dangerous ride; this would basically be the same as having no suspension on the rear of the truck at all.
After mulling over it a bit, I ran to the local auto parts store trying to find some larger bump stops to replace the small rubber ones from the factory. I found some that I thought would work, but they were not tall enough at a little over 2″, and I don’t believe they were strong enough to hold up over time. I went back and picked up an inexpensive 2″ receiver and started cutting into it.
I ended up cutting out two 2x2x2″ brackets, and using them as spacers between the lower overload and the bump stop.
This results in enough space between the lower overload for it not to be engaged during empty riding – and quite a bit of testing confirms this – and full engagement with the weight of the fifth wheel on the truck.
With the lower overload fully engaged, the ride is substantially improved over the previous configuration. Being that the brackets are made from a receiver tube and secured with 304 stainless hardware, they should last a long time even under a lot of weight and abuse.
The truck has a 100lb toolbox and 60 gallons (over 400lbs) of fuel in it, and the trailer has a pin weight of at least 3000lbs (likely well over that). The fact that the lower overload on this truck is not fully engaged with over 3600lbs in the bed is a bit strange – if this isn’t a manufacturing flaw then it is a design flaw, at least with the target market for these trucks.
The rear of the truck is sitting level, or slightly higher than the front.The Timbrens are firmly engaged when the trailer is loaded onto the truck.
I changed a too much up at once here, with the Timbrens and Goosebox at the same time. There are some changes in the loaded ride, but I’m not sure which is responsible. I suspect that the air pressure in the hitch is the real culprit, but these may be the cause. With so many happy users though, I doubt it.
I received the goosebox a few days ago, and had them drop the pallet directly into the bed of the truck. From there, I tilted up the box and had Kelly pull the pallet out from under it, then turned it on its side, cut out the bottom of the box, and flipped it over so that it landed and secured itself on the ball. That made it easy enough to maneuver. I locked it down with a ratcheting tie down and attached the safety chains.
Today I took it to the RV, propped the back of the pin box up on leveling blocks, and backed under the wings. While I expected to make quick work of this using the hydraulic levelers on the front of the RV, it took close to an hour of shuffling to get everything lined up right and configured how I wanted it.
Back viewFront view
I found that I could get a full 90° lock, but that is the absolute limit, interestingly due to the reach of the safety chains.
It gives quite a bit more space around the back and side of the truck, which was surprising. Enough, actually, that I may eventually be able to get a wrap-around rear bumper for ease of access into the bed.
The amount of space around the truck when at 90°.
Towing with the Goosebox for the first time was uneventful. We made it home without any issues, and the ride was relatively smooth. There was a little but of unexpected discomfort on a bumpy 60mph stretch, but I suspect it may be the Timbrens, the air pressure, or possibly just something to get used to. On the flip side, it felt very nice at slower speeds, and going around corners at speed, without feeling like the trailer is trying to push past you. And it is silent – a nice change from the groaning that the friction-based sidewinder emits.
I think this is going to work out well for us, once we get a few small details worked out. I plan to tackle those this weekend.
I noticed that, when I loaded up the trailer the other day, the rear of the new truck squats a little more than I would like. That’s fairly typical – these trucks are fine tuned to be a compromise between ride quality and hauling capability, and they do tend to squat a bit if you put a heavy load on them.
Ram offers an option for rear air ride with auto-leveling, which is similar to the Kelderman 2-stage system as it still retains a leaf. That gives you the same ride level regardless of the load in the truck, and is their attempt to address the need for compromise. Both fortunately and unfortunately, this truck did not come with it. I actually did not want it – as it severely limits aftermarket applications on the truck, and you can’t even buy non-Mopar shocks for it. Unfortunately, without it, our trailer is enough to put a little more squat than I would like on the truck.
Rear is about 1/2″ lower than the front, and that is without being fully loaded.
There is a massive aftermarket dedicated solely to addressing this scenario – since the trucks have to tailor to a wide range of buyers, with a wide range of usage/application, the aftermarket does too. I’ve run air bags and StableLoads in the past, with good results, and went so far as a Kelderman 4-Link full air ride on the old truck. Having run traditional air bags, I did not want to go that route again and StableLoads doesn’t provide lowers for the 2019 model year due to an atypical lower overload design.
I ended up ordering the Timbren SES, which is a very simple solution that replaces the factory bump stops with progressive rubber springs providing up to 8600lbs of support. The install was very quick and straightforward, and did not require lifting the truck. I had them out of the box and installed in less than half an hour.
The kit comes with a couple of optional spacers. For the best unloaded ride quality, you want 1/2″ to 1-1/2″ between the axle and the rubber springs. In my case, that meant omitting the spacers and using the shorter pair of the included 9/16″ head bolts.
Since these replace the factory bump stops, the first step is to remove them using a 5/8″ socket. They are held in place by two bolts. Then, thread the rearmost bolt back in, leaving enough gap for the 1/4″ thick plate of the Timbren bracket to fit through.
I had some issues getting the springs tightened to the brackets, so I dropped them into a vice to get a sufficient lock on them.
Then, simply bolt slide the Timbren assemblies into place and bolt them in. You will need to use a 5/8″ closed-end wrench on the rear bolt you pre-threaded into the mounting bracket on the frame, and just a socket on the other side.
With this installation, the unloaded ride should be unaffected because the axle does not come in contact with the rubber spring. However, when the trailer is on the truck the gap will close and it will begin to provide resistance. The idea is to reduce the squat of the truck and provide better handling by providing additional contact points and spreading out the load.
Between six tires on the truck, four tires on the RV, spares, the air bag in the pin box, bicycle and tricycle tires, and water inflatables, we use compressed air quite often. And due to the pressure required by the RV tires, we need a pretty good sized compressor with a 100% duty cycle at over 100PSI. Our old truck had an on-board Viair 444C compressor to work with the Kelderman air ride suspension, and I tapped into the air tank to supply auxiliary air as needed.
The air system in my old truck – a bit more complex than this install needs to be.
This truck doesn’t have air suspension, but Viair makes the 450P-RV, which is more or less the same compressor rigged up as a portable, with an automatic shutoff.
Viair also makes actual on-board air systems for trucks, but they all have air tanks, and I don’t want to dedicate the room for a tank on this truck that will not provide any benefit for my usage. They rely on a pressure switch on the tank with a relay to shut off the air compressor, so they’re not configured for use without a tank. As such, I decided to permanently mount a 450P-RV in my toolbox, hard wired to Aux 6 in the cab, and swap out the air outlet to a quick connect on the outside of the toolbox. Now I have fully functional on board air, without a tank, in a neat little package that is perfect for airing up tires.
I was able to mount the compressor with minimal modification, to the inside of the toolbox. This is also where I had the 444C mounted on my old truck.
Lets hope I never have to pull that compressor. Due to the clearance with the compressor brackets, and the clearance between the toolbox and bed, and the clearance to the bottom bolts when installed in the box, It was close to impossible to get in and might be actually impossible to get out without pulling the whole toolbox up. I used bolts with nyloc nuts to fasten it, so unless it fails, it won’t be going anywhere.
I ran the output to a quick connect on the outside of the toolbox, so I can access it with the lid closed and locked.
I like the hose two piece hose that comes with the 450P-RV kit, so I decided to keep it instead of the hose I’ve been using. In this case, I had to swap the end out on one of the hose from female to male, because I wanted a female coupler on the outside of the toolbox.
I love these upfitter switches. This one I tied into Aux 2, which I rigged up to power a 40A relay that transfers power directly to the battery. Ram did a much better job than GM of giving you options to tap power from the battery, as well.
We currently use a Reese Sidewinder pin box with a Curt A16 hitch. The Reese Sidewinder is designed to address the turning limitations you have with short bed trucks, and isn’t really designed for use in a long bed. It is compatible with a long bed truck and does slightly reduce the turning radius, but adds a lot of complexity and maintenance to the experience.
With a traditional pin box, you have a rigid connection from the trailer frame all the way to the connection point on the truck, and turning occurs at the connection point. With a short bed truck, this can result in the trailer hitting the cab in sharp turns because the trailer is too close to the truck. The Sidewinder uses a wedge to lock out this rotation – something that jams into the hitch head and has to resist the momentum to turn – and uses Teflon plates on a turret to rotate under the nose of the fifth wheel, where usually you would have a rigid connection. This moves the pivot point 22″ back, while keeping the connection point and weight over the rear axle. It’s a slick solution to a serious problem, when needed. In addition to a very heavy pin box, due to the turret and the reinforcement to handle the forces at play, you still need to have a heavy traditional hitch in the bed of the truck.
The Sidewinder works by turning independently of the trailer.
As mentioned, you can use one with a long bed, but since the hitch is already so much further from the cab the benefits are minimal. You end up with a slightly closer tracking trailer, which can be a great thing, but the majority of people tow day in and day out with traditional fifth wheel hitches.
I liked the idea of the tighter turning radius and moved ours over. It was also the cheapest up front thing to do – I had most of the components on hand. The more I thought about it, though, the less determined I was that I made the correct decision. The Sidewinder is a slick solution, but has some notable downsides:
Noisy – the design relies on friction, and it lets you know it
Feel – even with the AirBorne (air ride) option, you feel some of that friction, especially at low speeds
Handling – because the pivot point is 22″ behind the axle of the truck, during a quick turn you can feel the trailer inertia pushing sideways behind the hitch. Given that this is fairly distant from the axle, it does have a noticeable amount of leverage on the truck and can feel like the rear axle of the truck is going to break free and move sideways. I don’t think this has ever been dangerous for us, but I’ve adjusted my driving accordingly – occasionally at the expense of holding up traffic. It has been uncomfortable on a couple occasions.
Maintenance – before every trip you are supposed to check the torque on the turret bolts. I’ve rarely seen them loosen up, but carry a torque wrench in the truck and am constantly checking them. Additionally, you have to lubricate the teflon plates all the time if you want to keep the noise and friction down. And the biggest thing is that you have to drop the 175lb pinbox from the trailer, disassemble and lubricate it “seasonally”. I also had to add air to the air bag almost every time I moved it.
Weight – at 175lbs for the pin box, it weighs about 100lbs more than the Lippert 1621 most trailers come with, and you have to use a conventional hitch (100+lbs) fixed in the bed of your truck. This takes away payload – not really an issue with the DRW, but a major issue on an SRW, and one of the contributing reasons we went chasing good money after bad to make that truck work.
You still have to keep a large, heavy hitch in your truck bed.
These are all things I was willing to put up with on a short bed, now that I don’t need to, I decided that I won’t. The Reese Sidewinder, in-bed hitch, and adapter was not cheap. Most of the cost was in the pin box itself, but to go out and buy an identical setup would run around $2500. That should hold some value on the used market, say at least half of new. That gives us some money to play with and can be used to eventually offset the costs of a new setup.
We’ve used several hitches over the years, buying and selling and haggling with others, and have experienced quite a few designs. By far, our favorite hitch to date was the TrailerSaver BD3. The BD3 is an air-ride hitch, where the air bags are on the hitch itself rather than the pin box. It rides extremely smooth, the hitch head is highly articulative, has a great automatic latch system and huge, tight tolerance jaws. It was also insanely expensive and there is no way I’m investing in a new one. I looked around on Craigslist and nearly bought one, but decided again, to look at my options.
240lbs as pictured above.
Gooseneck adapters are typically frowned upon for fifth wheels because they exert a lot more force on the trailer than a fifth wheel hitch would. Reese provides a solution called the Goosebox, which is the only supported solution by our frame manufacturer, Lippert. They’ll even honor the warranty with it, though our trailer is now well out of factory warranty. It works a bit differently than in that it is a complete pin box and not an adapter, and distributes those forces over a larger connection area as well as utilizes shock absorbers and air to mitigate them. It still probably exerts more force on the trailer than a fixed pin box and hitch, but I doubt any more than the Sidewinder we are using now.
The Goosebox is not without some downsides:
Difficult to connect
Additional forces on the trailer frame, as described above
Safety chains are required by most state laws
On the flip side, they have some really nice benefits:
Clean truck bed when not attached to the truck
Smooth and quiet ride
Low maintenance (never requiring removal from trailer)
The major con for most people would be hooking up – you have to be directly under the ball. Since we have the cargo cam in our truck, we have a direct visual of the ball and should be able to hit it every time. I’ve also gotten pretty precise at backing over the years and don’t expect it to be an issue.
The Goosebox comes in a couple sizes. Our trailer has a gross weight of 15,500#, so we can get away with the 16,000# model in theory. All of our current gear is rated for 16,000# and 3,200# tongue weight. While I don’t have weights on hand, I suspect we’re under on the first number but at or over on the second.
Being that we’ve not had issues with the 16K/3.2K gear I started out looking at the same for the Goosebox. Ultimately, I decided to order the 20K version with 4,000# pin capacity to make sure we’re not overloading the pin. With a 300lb generator, 110lbs of propane, 100lbs of batteries, and 160lbs of washer/dryer right around the pin on our RV with a dry hitch weight of 2,485# we’re easily pushing north of 3,200# once we add in other gear.
With the Goosebox, the bulk of the hitching gear remains with the trailer. It looks like this (not my truck):
Virtually nothing is left in the bed once the trailer is unhooked. What is left can be removed in a matter of seconds.
All that remains in the truck once the trailer is removed is a 2-5/8″ hitch ball, which due to the factory tow prep on our Ram, can be removed in about 10 seconds and stored virtually anywhere. With no trailer in the truck, there is no hitch, and no fuss. The truck bed is freed up for storage and transport like it should be. The ride should be really nice from everything I’ve read as there is no slop in a ball connection and the assembly uses shock absorbers and air for dampening. Turning shouldn’t be an issue, since we’ll be using our long bed truck as designed.
I’m not sure when we’ll get this in, but I’m excited to try it out. It ran less than $1500 for the whole outfit, including the ball and safety chain setup, and I anticipate making most if not all of that money back by selling the Sidewinder pin box, Curt A16 hitch, and B&W Patriot hitch that will soon be gathering dust in the garage.
When we purchased our Ram, it came with dealer mud flaps on it.
Dealer mud flaps
When we purchase a vehicle, our relationship with that dealer is essentially over. I’ve never gone back to the dealer I’ve purchased a vehicle from for service, usually opting for whatever dealer is closest to me at that time. Nor have I revisited for a second purchase – maybe that will change in the future if there are ever any stand out experiences. Since I’ve never had an overwhelmingly positive experience with a car dealer, I can’t imagine wanting to drive around providing free advertising for them.
In this particular case the experience wasn’t bad, but it took longer than it should have and the offer in person wasn’t the same that had been discussed on the phone, causing quite a bit of frustration and delay while we argued them back down to where we wanted. Typical dealership hassles, in my experience.
One of the first things I did was pull those mud flaps off the truck and order the OE ones from an online dealer. The part number for mud flaps wasn’t published yet for 2019 trucks, so I ordered the ones slated for 2010-2018, under the impression they should be the same. Part number 82215777AB, in case anyone is here looking for it.
It turns out that none of the mounting holes line up between year models, so I used the ones I removed from the dealer as a template to sort of get these to fit. They’re a larger size and much thicker and heavier than the ones that came with the truck, so using those as a template was not ideal. After a little experimentation, I ended up with the above fitment on both sides.
We both think they are a large improvement over the dealer-installed ones and fit pretty well. I considered running without them, but was worried about the paint behind the rear wheels and they’re required on DRW vehicles by many state laws.
I finally received the new windshield mount for my Garmin Dash Cam 35 (the adhesive is permanent, so I had to order a new mount for the new truck) and probed out various power sources to find the best place to install.
The 12v lead to the mirror is tied to the ACC/ON ignition positions, making it ideal for this application. I spliced a tee into it, along with a 5A inline fuse, and a 12V to 5V USB converter from Amazon that is tucked into the mirror housing. This allowed for a tidy, almost factory look.
