I am borrowing my dad's travel trailer and have a question about the weight distributing hitch.

can i use his drawbar/ball portion of his hitch without actually using the weight distributing portion of it? it looked like the ball has some flex to it where it bolts on, can that be tightened up?

i have to run a longer drawbar on my truck b/c of my rear bumper, so i was hoping to avoid having to unbolt my 2" ball and replace it w a 2 5/16". (and just use his instead, since it has a long drawbar).

does that make sense?


cliffnotes: can i use a weight distributing hitch without the distributing bars?

 

yes, I have them & if I do a short run I only hook it up normally, 2 5/16 ball, safety chains, brake cable & the plug

 

thanks, just to clarify, it looks like this, where theres a slight angle

https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...0&d=1247754065 (not my truck)

im going to haul it ~250 miles, but its only ~4500lbs.

he has the wd hitch for his half ton, but i figure mine being 3/4 and with timbrens too it wont be neccessary (or worth the hassle)

all my trailers are gooseneck. this will be the first thing off the back of the truck in quite a while

 

my hitch looks similar to that, I do not have the small ball which is for the anti-sway, I would just hook it up, you might need to adjust the height so your trailer is level

 

cool. thanks for the info.

 

It's just a fancy stinger, that accepts the spring bars and other stuff. It does need to be tight and have no slop. There's an adjustment bolt and some shims to set the angle. It's 90 degrees to the two big bolts you see from the side, below the ball. usually that single bolt needs to be tightened, then the two larger bolts going thru the whole thing needs to be tightened a whole lot. It's how you adjust the torque that transfers weight to the front axle, but you don't need to worry about that. Just make sure they are all tight starting with the single bolt.

 

will i need to loosen them back up then when i return the hitch to him to be used with the WD stuff? If it requires any readjustment, i know im going to get a call to drive 60 miles out there to hook it up on his truck LOL

 

There shouldn't be any slack in the hitch to begin with. If you just tighten it up and don't remove any of the shims (washers), then you should not have to do anything when you return it. As a matter of fact, you will be doing him a favor by tightening the hitch.

 

Correct. Leave all shims in place, and tighten everything. It's really a bad thing for him to be using it loose. I say tighten the one single bolt first then the two thru bolts so you'll be sure to get all the slack out. Once you dive into it you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

The WB bars make for a better ride, I use them on mine. Just dont crank on them much.

 

ok, made it back. i was wrong about the hitch being loose, it was just shimmed down. i towed it without the bars no problem. i might use them in the future to see if it helps reduce sway. the trailer is actually pretty light. lighter than my big GN empty. it barely put it on the timbrens. anyway, we had a great trip. thanks for everyone's help.

 

Looking at the instructions for most of the WD heads out there if the WD bars aren't hooked up the rating is cut in half. i.e. a 1,200/12K WD hitch is only a 600/6K non WD hitch.

The only one I have found that doesn't state this was the equal-i-zer.