Standard 2-inch Hitch Receiver for Freightliner Cascadia

Like this!!

 

Well.....sorta

 

Built this one a few years ago...getting ready to redo it. Going to use the 2" to mount a gooseneck ball on the front side, and add a 2-1/2" receiver on the bottom of the cross member, rework the lights, and add air & electric for a semi trailer as well as the 7-round RV for the gooseneck. I have pretty much everything I'll need except the time to tear into it...

 

I like that design... And its simple, but the hitch is at nut height instead of shin height... A trailer with a rigid tongue would drag the back end on the ground

 

You could have any drop length you would need. I have a neighbor that has 3 different lengths for his trailer, sailboat and car. It is mounted just like Pedigreed's

 

You are doing all this to avoid a motel room?

 

Yeah, it's a little on the high side. The 8" drop hitch I've had in there puts the ball at maximum height to use the draw bar, which is one of the reasons I'm putting the 2-1/2" receiver below (where I SHOULD have put it initially, but was trying to avoid redoing the lights...chose the simplest method back then)...with an 8" drop hitch it'll put the ball roughly 3" lower, closer to 'reasonable' for any of my trailers. The 2" tube that's already there now is positioned perfectly, though, to place an 18,000# rated 2" drop flipped over and facing front to mount a gooseneck ball...weld it in real good, reinforce it a bit, and it'll be a lot stronger than just the rating it has with the pin.

Live & learn...it does get some comments whenever somebody spots it, though. Not many trucks have a drop hitch on the rear.

 

nice setup there pedigeed bulldog so simple and clean. i agree its too high but if it wasn't for that, that hitch would be very nice.

 

If I ever get a round tuit, I'll post some more pics of the updated rear section. Going to be a LOT more involved, because I'll be adding an air-to-electric brake controller. Have a 9-pin trailer connector to be able to unplug the rear cross member for removal...got the 7 typical wires for the RV plug, plus the 2 wires up to the dash switch to turn off the infernal back up alarm when I don't want/need it making noise. For the lights, I thought about cutting holes in a piece of sheet metal to put rubber gromets and the 4" round lights...but found some others I like better with integrated backup lights (similar to what you'd see on an old jeep or pickup truck) that will avoid my having to build a box to protect the plugs and wiring connections. Also, since MO DOT during my last inspection said they wanted to see reflective strips on mudflap hangers or light bar behind the wheels EVEN when not running mud flaps because I'm hooked to a trailer, I bought some 2" receiver tube. Going to come down off the rear cross member between the frame rails, and make an ICC type bumper just high enough to hang some short mudflaps below, and will probably put some of the rubber flaps that bolt onto the top of a 1/4 fender on top...that way I can run the reflective tape across that, but it'll be low enough not to interfere with any trailers AND I won't have to mess with hanging my mudflaps every time I drop my trailer to bobtail the mile over to the babysitter to grab the boy, then stowing them again when I hook back up to run the last 30 minutes home.

Anyway, I'm also going to run air/electric from my catwalk down to the new rear piece so that if I want, I can connect my air/electric to that to run to a tag or flatbed with the air/electric down by the landing gears. Plus, with the 7-round RV plug and air-to-electric brake controller and gooseneck ball, there really won't be too many trailers I can't hook to...pretty much the low-mount car haulers, but that's not really something I'd ever need to pull with this truck anyway.

If it turns out half as good as it looks in my head, it'll be pretty slick.