Fifth Wheel

14 posts in How-To Guides

A fifth wheel is not just a bigger travel trailer. The hitch sits in the truck bed, the pin weight decides which truck you need, and 40 feet of trailer changes where you can go.

These guides are all written from ours: hitching to a gooseneck ball, the level test that decides whether we unhitch, greasing the wet bolts under the rig, weighing at a CAT scale, and dealing with the mice and ants that eventually find any RV.

Our real numbers are in them, including the weigh ticket we got wrong the first time.

Towing & Setup

Overnighting at Walmart in an RV: How to Actually Do It

Published on Aug 5, 2026

Free overnight parking works until the store says no, the lot is full of sedans, or nobody answers the phone. Here is how we do it with a 40-foot fifth wheel, and when we pay for something else.

Water & Tanks

RV Macerator Pump: How It Works, and What to Do When It Will Not Run

Published on Aug 2, 2026

A macerator that has power and still will not spin is usually seized, not dead. The fix takes a screwdriver and thirty seconds, and we nearly bought a replacement pump before we found it.

Towing & Setup

RV Roadside Assistance: What It Covers, and What It Will Not Do

Published on Jul 31, 2026

We called roadside assistance fifteen minutes into a travel day with 21,000 pounds behind us. What we learned is that these plans are built for problems with names, and ours did not have one.

Towing & Setup

How we plan travel days with RV LIFE Trip Wizard

Published on Jul 28, 2026

Regular map apps do not know your rig has a height and a weight. Here is how we use RV LIFE Trip Wizard to plan RV-safe travel days for a 40-foot fifth wheel.

Maintenance & Repairs

What Full-Timers Do Instead of Winterizing an RV

Published on Jul 26, 2026

Winterizing assumes your RV sits empty and unheated all winter. Ours does not, because we drive it somewhere warmer. Here is the full-timer version, including the one job we do not skip.

Towing & Setup

Our RV travel day checklist (and how we share it between two phones)

Published on Jul 24, 2026

The exact 30-item checklist we run before every travel day, why the oddball items earned their spot, and how to share one live list across two iPhones.

Towing & Setup

How to Tow a Fifth Wheel: What Truck You Need and How to Actually Do It

Published on Jul 22, 2026

Neither of us had towed anything before we bought a 17,700 pound fifth wheel. Here is what we learned about matching a truck to a trailer, hitching it, and getting down the road, with our real scale numbers.

Towing & Setup

How to Hitch a Fifth Wheel to a Gooseneck Ball

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A fifth wheel on a gooseneck ball keeps your truck bed clear, but the hookup has its own steps. Here is the procedure we should have followed the day we hitched our Brinkley for the first time.

Towing & Setup

How to Stay Hitched Overnight in Your RV (The Level Test)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A one-night stop only saves time if you can skip the full unhitch-and-level routine. Here is the level check we run before deciding to stay connected to the truck, plus the tolerances that decide it.

Maintenance & Repairs

How to Grease RV Wet Bolts (And Check Your Undercarriage)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

Wet bolts are the greaseable pivot bolts in your trailer suspension, and most owners have never touched them. Here's the full undercarriage routine we run on our fifth wheel, done the way Lippert and Dexter say to do it.

Pest Control

How to Get Rid of Mice in an RV (And Keep Them Out)

Published on Jul 15, 2026

Traps on the travel routes, steel wool in the gaps, and care about what's safe around pets. What we learned clearing a mouse infestation out of our fifth wheel after six weeks in storage.

Pest Control

How to Keep Bugs Out of Your RV

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A trail of ants marched into our fifth wheel and Fabiola declared war. Here's the full defense we ended up with: vent screens, a perimeter spray, and a borax bait mixed at the right strength.

Water & Tanks

How to Dump RV Tanks With a Portable Tote Tank

Published on Jul 15, 2026

A portable tote lets you stay parked for weeks and haul only the waste to the dump station. Here's the right way to fill, tow, and empty one, plus everything we got wrong trying it the first time.

Towing & Setup

How to Weigh Your RV at a CAT Scale

Published on Jul 15, 2026

The full CAT scale process for a truck and fifth wheel: two passes across the platforms, what the ticket numbers mean, and the mistakes we made on our first weigh.