The clearance between the overhang on a 5th wheel and the top of the truck bed rails.
In YOUR opinion what do YOU think is a safe amount? 6"-8"-10" or ?
I just picked up a new Attitude 5th wheel and cannot recall the my old trailer to bed rail clearance.
Thanks for your opinions,Robert.

I keep hearing 5.5-8" is a sure bet. Mine is just under 6" with flipped axles, 5-7" lifted truck.

depends on how extreme terrain you plan on going over, when I had my F550 the bed was 8' wide and there was about 10" between the top of the stakebed and the trailer, Now with the F450 with a regular dually bed there is only about 6 or so. Now I cant get into one of my driveways because it has a drop down so the corner of the bed hits the bottom of the trailer when the front wheels drop at an angle (drivers front goes down, passenger rear corner hit trailer). Granted it is a more extreme angle than normal, but its inconvienent that I cant turn in that way now. All in all 6-8 inches should be fine

Soooooooo whats a all around safe number...8-10-12"......

If you go too high, your trailer wont be level. (like in the pic...obviously exaggerated) You can offset if you do a suttle axle flip, was explained some frames have multiple holes on the frame brackets for this?

Great explanation. Well done.

8" minimum.

but again, just like posted earlier. it all depends on terrain. my old truck and trailer had 6", and i hit the bed rails with the overhang once.

new truck and trailer has 10". no problems yet.

with my 5er, i believe there is about 8in or so of clearance, more than ive ever needed and the trailer sits nice n level. i towed a 40fter last week and had about 6in or so of clearance. trailer damn near took a bite out of the left bedside, definately an oh s***! moment! granted, that was on some REALLY uneven terrain where a trailer such as that one should not have been....

According to RV sites and my own experience, 10 - 12" is a very safe number. I had about 7" of clearace and have a nice big dent in my bed rail to show for it. I was pulling into a gas station with a fairly steep driveway, watching my mirrors to clear all of the oblivious buttholes crowding my sides while I'm trying to get the rig lined up with the pumps and the trailer silently dented the rail by about 3/4".

The moral of thestory is, you never know how steep (or angled sideways) of a driveway you are going to encounter in your travels, so you need to be able to clear the worst of them. Because if you encounter one that is too steep and you want to back out of the gas station, nobody is going to let you back up. If necessary, flip the axles or get longer spring perches.

I'm at a point right now with this new 5th wheel that I most likely will add a frame spacer to the leaf perches. It does have a 2"x2" frame spacer right now from the factory but I MIGHT remove it to add MAYBE a 2x3 or a 2x4" spacer. The axles were flipped but the trailer is a wee bit low.....like about 7". So I do not mind setting it up right from the get go (sub frame-cross braces...) .......that is why I'm asking what is a" very safe distance "......It's looking like it the magic number that I'm searching for might be 10".
P.S. This 5er will be lower than my old one which was 14'2" to the top of the AC's.

According to RV sites and my own experience, 10 - 12" is a very safe number. I had about 7" of clearace and have a nice big dent in my bed rail to show for it. I was pulling into a gas station with a fairly steep driveway, watching my mirrors to clear all of the oblivious buttholes crowding my sides while I'm trying to get the rig lined up with the pumps and the trailer silently dented the rail by about 3/4".

The moral of thestory is, you never know how steep (or angled sideways) of a driveway you are going to encounter in your travels, so you need to be able to clear the worst of them. Because if you encounter one that is too steep and you want to back out of the gas station, nobody is going to let you back up. If necessary, flip the axles or get longer spring perches.
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Yo baby....That's what I'm talking about" 10-12".... looks like 10" is a very safe number.
It's a 2010 33' Attitude 5th wheel.
Soooooooooooo does every one agree that they would like to have 10" ?

9" on mine. Trailer sits level.

This is all good info...I have an issue with this also.....not sure if I feel that safe heading out the wash road...some of those dips are deep...I might have to flip the axles...don't really want to because of the height issue...my truck isn't even lifted...

ttt

Older thread but thought I'd add my experiance(s). I borrowed(rented) a flatbed GN some time ago. At that time pulled it with a nonlifted 1998 4x4 Dodge with oversize tires. I had heard 6" was the minimum to be safe but I was sitting right at 5.5". It never hit but it came VERY close on more than one occasion.

When I was designing my 48' Pace GN I was concerned about the clearence. In the 2008 model year Pace made 68" the standard for ground to bottom of riser H. I was anticipating a 61" bed H with a mildly lifted F450. I thought this 7" was cutting it close so wanted to raise it 2" or 4". They said they only could go in 6" increments so to be safe went to the 74". Long story short I have exactly 12" of clearence now. Deff no issue of hitting but it has many more advantages. It is MUCH easier to get into the bed to latch hitch & safety chains as well as having a little extra clearence to put cargo(usually wood) in.

So I'd say anywhere from 8-12" would be ideal, better safe than sorry.

we just picked up a new 40ft triple slide and we have about 7.5 to 7 inches of clearance that number gets really small at times. I wish we had more like 8-9 inches but go slow and watch your bed rails and back of cab.

I have 9" of clearance on mine and wouldn't want any less.

Well after reading the posts and other threads I went ahead and flipped the axles on my beast! Along with that I got cross members, gussets, Dexter heavy duty kit and the Dexter EZ Flex kit installed. This thing is STOUT! The trailer no longer creaks, pops and groans. I have no worries about the frame twisting or the walls sagging. And to fix the original problem and the reason for doing all of the work, I have plenty of clearance ( 9" ) over the bed. I have a ford superduty 4x4 with a 4.5 lift on 35"s. I still have to address the issue of the steps being too short but that should be easy enough. I am going to build a wood box with metal grate on top to clean my feet off ( if you have one you built post a pic )

I called and visited several trailer customization/builders and I got so many different opinions and recommendations. I figured that I should just do it all while it was getting done. Some of the shops were crap and the one that I had do the work was great. Very helpful, clean, thorough and decently priced as well. www.nomafab.com I am not just posting his web address as advertising for him I am posting it to make life easier for those of you that need work done on your rig.

Cant wait to take this thing out!!