My Reese Dual Cam HP has issues. The driver side ( street side) cam does not line up with the weight distribution bar.
It seems that the left side is ok.
I am wondering if the HP cam assembly is bent.
I double checked my installation with the Reese manual, and everything seems in order.
Has anyone run into this problem? Has anyone ever dealt with Reese's customer service dept.?
I posted some pictures of the problem below. The 2 top view pictures clearly show how the metal is being damaged by the misalignment. All this happened just in one trip, and I noticed the misalignment before leaving, ruling out a mishap while driving. This was the first time that I have towed with it.
My Reese Dual Cam HP has issues. The driver side ( street side) cam does not line up with the weight distribution bar.
It seems that the left side is ok.
I am wondering if the HP cam assembly is bent.
It looks like the "J" shaped piece on the tongue is bent. You should try marking the place it is now, loosen the jam nut, and turn that piece 180 degrees, and see if it looks bent the other way. If so, it is an easy fix, just replace the part. But resist the urge to try to bend it back, it will never be right, and will be a source for a metal fatigue break later on.
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Terry You repair things with tools. You fix things with a hammer.
AIR#2611
It looks like the "J" shaped piece on the tongue is bent. You should try marking the place it is now, loosen the jam nut, and turn that piece 180 degrees, and see if it looks bent the other way. If so, it is an easy fix, just replace the part. But resist the urge to try to bend it back, it will never be right, and will be a source for a metal fatigue break later on.
I agree, but the piece won't turn as it is keyed and grooved in it's retainer.
Maybe if I slide it out, swap it out side to side and see how it does on the other side? This would tell me which part of the equation is faulty, no?
The bars are interchangeable. See if they fit properly if you do the swap. Lubricate the trunion pins. Did you go in and out of any big dips? You may have done it when you were doing some tight parking turns. I do not hook mine up until we are ready to pull out fairly straight. I can not back into my driveway with the bars on (it forces the tail down and drags) so we never have seen the problem. But then again, I have the old system with the replaceable cams.
The problem was there before I even left home. First time out with it.
Sounds like it was DIT (damaged in transit). I think you could swap sides with it, and see if the problem goes with the J piece, or stays on the left side. It will narrow down your problem area, if nothing else.
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Terry You repair things with tools. You fix things with a hammer.
AIR#2611
I have talked to Reese Customer Service people a couple times and they were very receptive to my questions, but it can be difficult to analyze problems via the telephone.
Don't you have a Reese dealer nearby that you could take your trailer to?
It's hard to see from your picture, but is the spring bar positioned perfectly in the cam assembly, as per Reese's instructions? It rather looks like it may be too far to the front. When you make a turn to the right or left, the spring bar slides one way or the other on the cam assembly, and if it's not properly positioned to begin with, that might be causing your problem. (I'm far from being an expert, but having gone through two lousy set-ups and adjustments of my High Performance Dual Cam by 2 different Airstream dealers in the past year, I spent a lot of time and extra expense to learn a bit myself, and finally got it fixed - no thanks to Turner Airstream and Bretz RV).
Don't you have a Reese dealer nearby that you could take your trailer to?
It's hard to see from your picture, but is the spring bar positioned perfectly in the cam assembly, as per Reese's instructions? It rather looks like it may be too far to the front. When you make a turn to the right or left, the spring bar slides one way or the other on the cam assembly, and if it's not properly positioned to begin with, that might be causing your problem.
John
John,
It is positioned properly, according to the Reese installation instructions.
I even went ahead and loosed everything up, as they suggest, and then drive in a straight line, and re-align the cams with the spring bar detent.
The cam on that side is never square to the spring bar.
The more I think about it, the more it is becoming clear that the street side cam is tweaked somewhere.
Uwe,
Have you ever been able to determine the problem with you hitch? If so , what was the fix.
I am getting ready to buy a Strait Line and was watching this thread to see if you have resolved the problem.
Did the hitch work well for you other than the misalignment issue?
Thanks
Mike B
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Mike B
1977 23' Safari
1976 31' Sovereign
1996 F350 CC PSD
I installed my own too and it doesn't look like that one. I had to adjust the cam a few times to get the bar to set correctly on the cam, but I've got several thousand miles on my dual cam and don't have those gouges in any part of mine....I agree it looks like a damage in transit, but I gotta say, they must have run over it with a truck, these things are not easy to bend or deform....heck I'd think it was cast wrong or something before I'd think it got bent like that in transit, cause the box you got it in would have had to have looked like a pancake.
Uwe,
Have you ever been able to determine the problem with you hitch? If so , what was the fix.
I am getting ready to buy a Strait Line and was watching this thread to see if you have resolved the problem.
Did the hitch work well for you other than the misalignment issue?
Thanks
Mike B
Mike,
I spoke to a Reese customer service representative, and after much "you did not install it right" from his end of the phone line, he finally agreed to send me out a new cam/bracket assembly.
I installed it, and it looks much better now. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to tow the trailer with it, as it went straight back into rehab after the shakedown trip to Pismo. Then my transmission failed, and then the door handles fell off, and now the burb runs rough.... so I have been chasing tow vehicle troubles instead of getting the trailer ready.
But, as stated earlier, it does look much better now.
There were no signs of bent items, it must have been a manufacturing error.
I agree it looks like a damage in transit, but I gotta say, they must have run over it with a truck, these things are not easy to bend or deform....heck I'd think it was cast wrong or something before I'd think it got bent like that in transit, cause the box you got it in would have had to have looked like a pancake.
Yeah, my feelings exactly.
It's a very solid piece of equipment. Slim chance of bending that....
Glad to hear they took care of you. I'm fairly please with our dual cam. I think my biggest issue is that my bars are too stiff given I have a 3/4 ton Suburban. I may downgrade my bars from the 800# bars to the 600#bars. I use to have the 1200lb bars and they were just dead weight. I get a slight bit of flex with the 800# bars, but given what's been said on the forum about overhitching, the 600# bars seem like what is needed to get a good bit of flex out of the bars to make the dual cam more useful, but don't run out, do it and quote me on that yet, I'm still in the planning stages!
Something I am having trouble with conceptualizing are the weight bar ratings. Why do the bars need to be closely matched to the tongue weight?
It seems that the force it takes to lift the back of the tow vehicle and the front of the trailer is a given. So the force on the chains/cams in this case to level the rig would be the same, regardless of what bars are being used?
How come then that oversized bars like mine would be less effective on teh dual cam HP than one closer to the actual tongue weight?
I can see where undersized bars wold present a problem, but oversized?
I am towing a 1963 Overlander with a Suburban 1500, via dual cam HP with round 1000lb bars.
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