Disturbing Discovery re the hitch

[albianne]

My husband went to get the truck detailed and the fellow says to hubby "Are you aware that the brackets attaching your 5th wheel hitch to your truck box are not secured to the frame, they are just attached to the box?" My husband was absolutely stunned, he got under the truck and the guy was right. We had the hitch professionally installed in Calgary 9 yrs ago! Hubby went straight to the RV shop down the street and the worker there said it is a miracle that we didn't lose our trailer. He also told us that we really should not have the box liner in the truck bed either, he said the spray on type liner is fine but not the black molded type that we have.
We are lucky in that we leave our trailer at a seasonal lot so aside from towing from the dealer lot to the campground we have not being towing our trailer around, but, we have bought/sold/switched trailers several times over the years and never had a problem with the hitch set up the way it is. Has anyone else ever seen this situation, the hitch brackets are only secured thru the box not the frame

[Dayle1]

In some cases, only the front brackets were attached to the frame, but I've never heard of all the bolts being attached to just the truck box. You have been fortunate in avoiding any problem so far, but time to get it attached properly. If the original install company is still in business, I'd take it back and have them fix it.

[albianne]

We are going to have to look thru our old files to see where we had the hitch installed it was 9 years ago, we have narrowed it down to 2 places in Calgary. Hubby looked again and he thinks that the front bolts are attached to the frame but definitely not the rear bolts. We have a Seville which I think is 34.5' long and pretty heavy so we are definitely going to have to have it secured to the frame before we will ever tow it again. We are also going to remove the molded box liner and have the coated spray on liner instead, has anyone had problems with their molded liner?

[w&cferb]

DH cut the liner in the area of the brackets.

[Stan]

I cut the plastic liner as well on my last truck. The new one is sprayed in. Just a thought...When you pull out the drop in liner check the metal of the bed around the hitch mount. If there was some flexing, the bed may be cracked.

[Lloyd]

Albianne:

What brand hitch do you have in your truck??

[lynlou14760]

That's rather alarming, to say the least. I'll check mine first thing in the morning!

[gtoguy1967]

That's why I put mine in myself and do most all of my own Maint. They are not hard to put in at all. Though I do understand some just can't.

[CruiserJoe]

After reading this post, bet there are a lot of guys out checking there setup today. That is scary.

[Lloyd]

I wouldn't get real concerned just yet if I was you guys.
The reason I asked what brand of hitch they had in the truck--------- Mine is a Katts and if you don't know what to look for, or you don't look close enough you would think the same thing about mine. Mine is a manual slider and has big plates with a track on them that the hitch slides on. Mine also is bolted to the box, BUT. there is two heavy bolts on each side that go all the way down through and bolt to the frame. I think they just wanted to secure that big plate and the truck box together the full length for some reason.