Thanks to everyone for their advice, I sold my 95 Ford Pwerstroke last week, and put a deposit on a new 06 3500 quad cab, laramie, Cummins, 6spd. It should be here in 6-12 weeks, now suddenly time is going by so slowwww.
Oh yeah, it'll be flame red. For now it's going to stay stock, my horse trailer is only 5500 empty, 8500 loaded, so I don't think this truck will have any problem pulling it down the road. After reading some of the other posts, I am sooo glad I ignored the dealership and insisted on the 6spd. I have finally warmed up to the new front end, I really did not like it when it first came out, but had to have the Cummins. I drove a new powerstroke, it had no power.
Now I have to decide which G/N hitch I want, I have used the draw tite remove a ball hitches since 1997, I like the new draw tite where only the ball is in the bed, but I have heard they can be a pain to flip the ball over. Any opinions? I will be installing it myself, so I like the rail kits draw tite makes that are designed for each truck, so you can use as many existing holes as possible. Would be nice to not have to cut that big piece out of the bed for the plate style.

 

Drawtight and B&W are your only real options here, there is a smaller company called Turnover Ball, or something like that. For ease of instalation and use it's B&W all the way IMO.

 

B&W is the same as Turnoverball.
B/W Link
Here is another link:
etrailer.com
If you go here, you can search for what fits your specific vehicle. For most of their stuff, they have the install instructions right on the website so you can see what you are getting into before you buy it.


Congrats Horselady, hope time moves by quicker for ya'
~Rob

 

I forgot to add, it's also 4 wheel drive. Now the dodge website is fixed, and the towing rating is 15,500 with the 3.73 rear axle ratio.

 

Kewl! The wait won't kill ya....

Fill out your signature and put the expected delivery date.

 

Guess that's why I never see anything on them anymore. I used to get dealer rep fliers from both B&W and Turnover Ball as seperate companies, but never paid any attention to the Turnover Ball material.

 

So they drop the 7/70 Powertrain Warranty for '06 and the tow rating magically increases by at least 1500#? It seems safety is not the only factor at work here. Great way to keep up with the Jones', DC!

UPDATE: I think there is still something wrong with the Dodge website. The manual adds about 2000# for the 3500, but not the 2500.

2ND UPDATE: The G56 with 3.73 gears is like the 48RE with 4.10s. Both have the higher tow rating, at least for 3500s. Apparently the rating is "capped" for 2500s.

 

By typing gooseneck hitches into Google I found Una-Goose hitches. For my farm/highway truck an uncluttered bed with no trailer hooked is needed. I have been looking at the Una-Goose system that leaves nothing in the box but a level, flush with the floor, 4 inch diameter cover over the 4" hole, after the ball is taken out of the socket in the cross member under the box floor. This type of hitch has my interest, because it is very strong for extreme tongue weights and the ball is simple to remove. Around the farm heavy overloads are common, but slow speeds are involved on somewhat rough terrain. Unfortunately, once in awhile it is expedient to pull an overloaded flat deck locally at highway speed. Heavy weight puts an extreme stress force against a hitch, and bumps or break ups in the asphalt really jerk on the hitch repeatedly. Dodge does not allow welding to the truck frame when a hitch is installed.

I had a 5th wheel hitch in two of my Fords, but I sold the flat deck eventually and junked the last Ford with 85K on the odometer. The load capacity was so heavy I could not get out of third gear on the highway and it cracked the oil control rings in one of the gas engines from high engine rpms and load on the engine. This diesel is going to be a pleasure now that I can take the shortest route and not have to always take the long route to reach a bridge with much less grade incline to the road approaches. At this time my opinion is that gooseneck hitches are more convenient. Does anyone know anything about or have any experience with a Una-Goose hitch?

 

Use caution on the Drawtite due to bolt placment on the frame you will lose an 1 1/2 of ball placement due to setup causing the ball to be closer to the rear of the truck instead of in front of the axle. This happened to my Dad's 04 (installed by dealer) and the reason I went with a B/W

 

do you know how many inches in front of the rear axle centerline the B&W is??

 

Their website (www.turnoverball.com) has the install instructions. On my 2nd gen short bed, it is about 5" forward of the axle. I thought it looked too far forward when the shop installed it, but I went to the website and verified the distance by looking at the instructions on-line. The instructions tell you how far forward from the end of the bed the hole should be, so there will be 2 distances, one for short beds and one for long beds.

EDIT: According to their website, you need a model #1306 for a 2006 3500 long or shortbed truck.
It says the hole should be centered 45 1/2" from the end of the bed of a shortbed or 47 1/2" from the end of the bed of a longbed.

~Rob

 

I talked to the dealership, my truck has a VIN #, and is scheduled to be built on Feb 3rd.