Customized Tacoma and Scamp 19 Rig

This is our home away from home on wheels. The camper is a 19' Scamp - the small/import truck friendly fifth wheel camper. We tow it with a Toyota Tacoma. The Scamp 19 hitch uses a 2" ball mounted in the truck bed - not a typical fifth wheel setup. Our custom hitch is one of a kind.

The photos above were taken looking over the tailgate into the truck bed at the hitch. The left photo shows the hitch in the forward position. The right photo shows the hitch in the back position. The distance between the two positions is 12" using a Reese slide hitch mechanism. The entire slide hitch mechanism is removable from the truck bed as shown below.

With the hitch removed, the entire bed is available for hauling just about anything. What remains in the bed are the rails to which the slide hitch attaches with steel pins. The rails are attached permanently to the truck using grade 8 bolts. Here is a closer look at the hitch assembly (in the shop during construction).

Fabricating this hitch assembly involved cutting down the stock Scamp 19 hitch,

then drilling some new holes to put it back together attached to the slider mechanism.

How did it work?

In a word - beautifully.

Motivation

In case you are wondering, this project cost about $500 in parts, and it probably took about 20 hours to make. Not trivial. So why did I bother? Isn't a slider hitch normally used to solve a cab clearance problem? Don't I have plenty cab clearance with this rig?

Yes, I had plenty of cab clearance. In the forward position the trailer ball is directly over the rear axle of the truck. I had plenty of room to execute a forward 180-degree U turn with room to spare. I could even back the trailer somewhat sharper to access tight camp sites.

I wanted to enclose the front 2' of my 6' bed. What's a handy man to do? Take an aluminum truck cap and shorten it to cover only the front of the bed!

Ah! Now the slider makes more sense. In the forward position the nose if the trailer is now 2' from the truck cap. I can still eek out a forward 180-degree U turn (just). I can't back any sharper then that or the rig would bind (crunch). That's what the rear slider position is for - low speed maneveurs in tight spaces. Here's a nice COE camp site (Leroy's Ferry, SC).

Notice the angle the truck is turned to the trailer. Also, the lid is in the up position. A bonus of the short cap: a built-in deflector. Filling the gap between the truck and camper blended their slipstreams together. Gas mileage improved a little (5-10%) and bug cleanup was easier following each trip.