Yes I grease the ball with regular grease from my grease gun.. Then I wipe off after I unhook otherwise I forget about the grease and it makes for a mess on my pants or someone elses.
If you are willing to spend the $6, Reese makes a recommended hitch ball lube in a small squeeze bottle that I just carry on the tongue of my trailer. It's not as messy as a grease gun and is really handy. Regarding the trunnion bar/cam lube... they work by friction. You don't want to lube them. If the noise is bad, Reese recommends using a very slight amount of vaseline to quiet them, but never use grease. Grease reduces friction and your sway system fails to function without it!
Roger
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AIR 2053 “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.” Robert Heinlein 2006 Bigfoot 25B25RQ towed by a 2001 Born Free 23RK moho
Manual?? What manual? No really, what is proper height for trailer tongue for 64 Safari? “Level” or an actual measurement?
I downloaded (and read) the Reese/Drawtite instructions. I leveled the trailer and measured to top of ball socket. It all makes sense now. Chain link #5. TV front/rear within ¼”.
Use the actual measurement from coupler to ground with the trailer on a flat surface. Level it by making the distance from frame to ground the same front and rear. Then set your ball height accordingly. The information from Airstream on ball height should NOT be used as the many things about each trailer that change (loading, axle droop, tire size, etc) make this dimension useless for proper setup.
Sounds like you have it set up better than 95% of the people out there. Once you know how it really should be, it is amazing how many poorly setup rigs you see.
I got new, galvanized, chain just the correct length so I don't have to count links. Just hook in the top link.
Reese has ball lube that doesn't run. A little dab will do you. I use it on the trunions too. The thing that you don't want to do is overlube the ball so that the lube goes down to the base of the ball. If it does, it can work it's way into the threads and cause the nut to loosen!
I agree, don't lube the cam surface with anythiing but a touch of vaseline if the noise gets too bad. I do, however, lube lighty where the spring bar meets the hitch head to prevent wear of the hitch head.
Ditto on jimmickle's recommendation to lube where the WD bar pivots into the hitch head.
Reese recommends light vaseline only on the cams, if you do it at all. The only point is to reduce the noise -- not as if everybody isn't already staring at the millionaire Airstream driver!! Let them think we're flub-ups just because our Reese's have that nasty metal on metal sound....
Thanks, for all the help I got choosing hitch and setting up.
I bought the special ball grease ..they are very proud of it here. $13. Oh well, right stuff, new $500 hitch, easy to have handy.
No grease on cams, got it, thanks!
I got it all set up easy enough and truck shop torqued down everything for me.
Ready to roll, come spring thaw.
There are oil holes in trunnion mount. 30wt oil? Or ball grease?
Rodney,
The bear comment thing:
I’m a Wildlife Biologist in Alaska. Lots of bears, moose & wolves here.
Working with Fish and Game we are studying Brown bear (grizzly bears) diet and habitat usage. We darted, captured and radio/GPS collared 9 Alaska brown bears this past summer and plan to do several more this year. Collar, ear tags, tattoo, temp, DNA, poke, prod, etc. Then sit next to them until they recover. It’s similar to “Light fuse, get away!”
We then fly over and upload data. GPS locations every 45 minutes, for 2+ years. Including current den sites. We were surprised to see just how much the bears use the military lands, state parks and urban interface with Anchorage…as in: They are IN the parks and peoples back yards at 2-3AM. Yet NO calls about them.
Having your hands on live bears is amazing. You haven’t lived until you’ve used a rectal thermometer on a 1000lb brown bear! Hey, someone has to do it…HAH!
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