Bolt this wedge onto your Reese Sidewinder (68220) to prevent the Sidewinder's king pin from rotating in your Curt E-Series fifth-wheel trailer hitch.
Features:
Note:
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey guys, Kevin here with etrailer and today we're gonna be taking a look at the custom fit Sidewinder wedge kits for the Curt E16 5th wheel hitch. As you can see, we have three different custom fit wedge kits. Four are E16 and there are a little bit of a difference in the designs. These two right here, we have our Curt and then we have two Reese ones. These are gonna be more like what you'll see generic that comes with your Sidewinder, or maybe if you have a Lippert Turning Point, you'd see some kind of generic wedge like that. And these are pretty typical, pretty easy to put in place.
So whenever you lock in your king pin into the hitch head, this Sidewinder wedge is going to come up and slip into place. And what it does is it prevents the kingpin from being able to turn. So when our Sidewinder's in place we're not gonna have two pivot points because we want that pivot point to be pushed back at the connection point at the trailer so that we gain that extra turning clearance. Now with the different designs each is gonna give you a little bit more pressure on the funnel itself and that's just gonna kinda take off the pressure from a certain other point. So if you have too much pressure on one side you can kind of get a little bit more wear and tear on it versus these custom fit wedges where it's gonna kind of fit and fill in that funnel and just kind of spread out that pressure.
Now with the Curt one, obviously with it being just a rectangle shape, it's only gonna slip in there. It's not actually gonna touch the funnel at all. With this Reese one here, you can see it's kind of a fan shape, so it kind of fits that funnel a little bit better. So it's gonna put pressure all along it and spread it out evenly. Now with our other Reese one here, I was having some difficulties.
The paint that they put on it is pretty thick so me pushing it up against it isn't really getting it to pop in place. Obviously when you back your truck up to the trailer and you get it in, it'll pop right in. But you may see that on this specific wedge. I tried a couple of them, they all seem to have a little bit too much paint on 'em. But same concept here, basically this rectangle portion's gonna pop inside of our hitch head and then we'll have this slanted portion pressing against the funnel.
Now I don't want to kind of push you away from your generic Sidewinder wedge. You can still use that. It's still safe. I just prefer to use the custom ones and I always recommend them just because it just evenly distributes that weight across the whole hitch head and I just prefer to take that extra step and keep my hitch looking nice and brand new. Now with these, it's a simple two bolt installation. You'll notice on one side it kind of has a divot in, that side is going to have the bolt head. So when we're looking at our pin box we would have this side facing down. The bolt would slip through and screw into the plating into our pin box. Here we have the same setup but this one also has a little track on the outside so it kind of keeps it in that line. And same thing with our other one over here. This one's got a little bit less to it. This one's pretty flat with just a little bit of space in here. And you can see there's a little bit of a weld spot on there to kind of separate the two bolt heads. Now we've gone over some of the specifics of our wedge kits. Let's go ahead and show you how to install it. So here we have a trailer with a Reese Sidewinder. Here's the generic like rectangle-shaped Sidewinder wedge kit that's typically gonna come with your Sidewinder. If you look back here, you can see the rotary wheel. And what this does is it allows our wedge kit to kind of move back and forth so that we can kind of fine tune exactly where it needs to sit. So if I pull this pin out and I turn it, so turning it counter-clockwise here, if I'm facing towards the trailer, is gonna push it forward more towards the king pin. And then if I put it back clockwise, we can get it kind of back towards the trailer. Now one little tip I do recommend doing is once you find that sweet spot of where this needs to sit so that it properly aligns in the head of the hitch, go ahead and just mark it. So like our neighbor today, they've already marked it. You can kind of see it, it's a little bit scratched up just from connecting to the hitch but there's a yellow marker on here, so that way you know exactly where it needs to sit every single time. You can easily put it back to where it needs to be and pop your clip back in. But let's go ahead, we'll take this off and show you how to put on a new one. So here is our old generic Sidewinder wedge kit. If you see right here, it has one less tab on it, on this part. This is gonna be facing towards our hitch 'cause it's gonna kind of overlap the head a little bit. And then it'll stop right about here. So with our new one, we're gonna copy that as well. We'll have that facing towards our hitch. And I'm gonna go ahead and just reuse the same bolts. So we'll go ahead and get down under our pin box. And right here is that little plate I was talking about that we can bolt into. Go ahead and place our wedge up here. Just hand tighten that in for right now, so we get this fully set and then we can use our wrench. Once we have 'em pretty tight we can go ahead and torque 'em down. Also, gonna go ahead and back this one up a little bit. This is a little bit larger than our last one, so we're gonna need to push it out of the way. We'll hook up to our kingpin and then we'll go ahead and select this into place, get it in the right position. Now we're hooked up to our hitch, we can go ahead and start turning our rotary wheel and get it fully locked up in position here. Pretty tight. All right, once we got in a position that we like, you can go ahead and slip our pin back in place and we're good to go. Well, I think about does it for today's look at our custom fit Sidewinder wedge kits here for our Curt E16 5th wheel hitch. My name's Kevin, thanks for watching.
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (38 Customer Reviews)
Bolt this wedge onto your Reese Sidewinder (68220) to prevent the Sidewinder's king pin from rotating in your Curt E-Series fifth-wheel trailer hitch.
The Reese Sidewinder (20k) setup I use with my 2022 Ram 2500 with a 6.5ft bed has been fantastic! I paired it with the Curt A25 and the OEM puck bracket to pull my 43' 15500 GVW 5th wheel, and it does not disappoint. No need to slide my hitch or worry about cab contact for sharp turns. I can turn 90deg with no issues if needed and have experienced very little line up issues getting it hitched up (mainly a result of the factory air ride releveling before the king pin fully seated in the hitch head). Great engineering by Reese all the way around! For those who will ask, no additional trailer sway and no turning limitations.
Having a Ram 3500 Megacab, short bed, I was terribly worried about hitting the cab with my Momentum toy hauler given it's 102" wide. My choice was slider or this Reese Sidewinder. I chose the Sidewinder and darn glad I did. It works as advertised and I can turn a full 90 degrees with about 5" of clearance between the cab and my front nose of the trailer. Some words of caution: this pin box is heavy! Get it professionally installed by your RV dealer. The wedges for your particular hitch will take some getting used too. Move wedge back to hitch, move forward to lock into place. Even still, I need to lay in the bed and have rigged up a heavy wire to assisting getting that wedge tight in the funnel. If you don't, the hitch will move on corners and you feel a big shift of weight.
Bottom line, I like it, it was the right decision for me and didn't take up any more payload than necessary unlike a heavy slider hitch. Recommended! And etrailer delivered on time as promised.
I received the part I ordered the 1st time, the gentleman that took the order did a great job. When I called to follow up people were awesome with customer service.
Great company to work with!
Parts where on back order per information given by my 2 other vendors etrailer had it in stock and arrived on time before original ETA
As a owner of a small business etrailer is great to work with and always helpful.
Looks good will install tomorrow
I needed this due to the model of hitch I have. Works great! Installation instructions were spot on.
I am giving it 3 stars because I was told, by etrailer, I needed it for my Sidewinder pinbox. You do NOT if you are using the pinbox with a Reese hitch. The Sidewinder comes with the Wedge kit bolted to it.
The wedge kit needed to use the Sidewinder has been amazing. I can't say enough about the whole Sidewinder hitch system. Makes towing, parking, even showing the hitch a breeze
The staff was very helpful and friendly. They made sure that I was ordering the right parts.
This wedge kit works in conjunction with the Reese Sidewinder pin box. The fit was perfect and a very simple install. As always, etrailer had exactly what I was needing and was quick with shipping.
This wedge kit is essential to the Reese Sidewinder pin box. It works great and, as always, etrailer has great service getting me this item in a crunch.
Sidewinder worked great for my short bed Ram. Be sure to get the matching wedge for your hitch.
Thanks etrailer. I will be using you for all my trailer components
Part looks good. I have not used it yet though
Nice hitch and good people to deal with
What I expected. Great quality.
She assisted me promptly and accurately thank you for being so fast and helpful
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