Equal-i-zer Hitch Thread.

[steve.thomps]

Sounds like the average guy (me) has probably gotta take this hitch to Camping World to get any adjustments made.

[m.hony]

Yep.
I asked Chris Burch at the Airstream service center if they could get mine tightened up while we are there for service work in September. He said they could git-r-dun.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, I changed my bolts to grade 8 and trimmed the ends off because they were a bit too long. As for torqueing the bolts, I turned my hitch up-side-down, in my receiver, used a deep impact six point socket on a 1/2" breaker bar and stood on it. That's 200 lbs plus the leverage of the breaker bar. I also put a bottle jack under the hitch to hold it solid while doing this. It has never come loose. [my torque wrench only goes to 250 lbs]

[m.hony]

It 's the L-brackets that I can't get tight enough.

[m.hony]

I have thought about using a cheater on my torque wrench or a lug wrench and standing on it.
I have also thought about taking it to our mechanic shop and using air.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by m.hony

It 's the L-brackets that I can't get tight enough.

Hi, my "L" brackets have never come loose after my copper tubing modification. This was done many years ago. [see page 1 of this thread]

[m.hony]

I have thought about a similar modification with electrical conduit.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by m.hony

I have thought about a similar modification with electrical conduit.

Hi, that might work too; I used copper tubing because 1/2" pipe size fits the bolts good and it allows for a little crush.

[kscherzi]

Originally Posted by ROBERTSUNRUS

Hi, I changed my bolts to grade 8 and trimmed the ends off because they were a bit too long. As for torqueing the bolts, I turned my hitch up-side-down, in my receiver, used a deep impact six point socket on a 1/2" breaker bar and stood on it. That's 200 lbs plus the leverage of the breaker bar. I also put a bottle jack under the hitch to hold it solid while doing this. It has never come loose. [my torque wrench only goes to 250 lbs]

My bolts turn when torquing one side. I use a big crescent wrench to hold the other end, but then I have too pound it loose to get it free. This loosens things a bit. The lock washers are tight, so I'm assuming its okay. Its a bit of a hassle as I've been adding washer combinations after Cat Scale weights and follow-ups.

[dkottum]

I found my brackets were moving even though I strongly tightened them. I noticed they had curved very slightly from tightening so most of the contact was only on the edges of the frame. So I took the brackets off and reversed them. Then when I tightened them the slight curve went out and they gripped the frame strongly from top to bottom. They never moved again (well, until I removed the hitch).

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by kscherzi

My bolts turn when torquing one side. I use a big crescent wrench to hold the other end, but then I have too pound it loose to get it free. This loosens things a bit. The lock washers are tight, so I'm assuming its okay. Its a bit of a hassle as I've been adding washer combinations after Cat Scale weights and follow-ups.

Hi, I use a trailer ball wrench [to hold the head of the bolt] that is double boxed end; You can buy them a Wal-Mart and several other places where the sell trailer parts.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by dkottum

I found my brackets were moving even though I strongly tightened them. I noticed they had curved very slightly from tightening so most of the contact was only on the edges of the frame. So I took the brackets off and reversed them. Then when I tightened them the slight curve went out and they gripped the frame strongly from top to bottom. They never moved again (well, until I removed the hitch).

Hi, that was the problem with the "L" brackets. Not tight enough and they slipped. Too tight and they bowed and slipped. Never found the happy medium, so that led to my modification.

[dznf0g]

When I had mine....after they were bowed with overtightening, I did not manually straighten them. I turned them over and tightened until they were just flat again. They never moved again.

[m.hony]

I will turn the bent "link plates" around as well. This was suggested by customer service at Equal-i-zer.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by m.hony

I will turn the bent "link plates" around as well. This was suggested by customer service at Equal-i-zer.

Hi, the outer plates can bow too and you can't turn them backwards. I, at first, bolted the brackets [off of the frame] face to face with a piece of metal in-between, and bowed them slightly in the opposite direction. But that was only a temporary fix.

[steverino]

Best solution for the slippage problem for me was from Equalizer support - When I installed the link plates, with the top bolt resting on the top of the A-frame, there was about 1/8" gap between the bottom of the A-frame and the lower bolt. Support recommended i insert a shim to fill that gap.

I found a pair of 1/8" mending plates at the hardware store - they are small square pieces of steel, used to secure two pieces of wood together in a butt joint. It was about 1 1/2" square, and 1/8" thick, with 4 holes for wood screws. It even had some dimples, which serve very well to insure that the shim would not slip out. It filled the gap perfectly, and completely stopped the slippage.

[m.hony]

I will try the "mending plates" idea.

[JimGolden]

I had the same problem, covered it in a thread long ago (you can find it with a search on Equal-I-Zer setup or similar).

The link plates are too flexible. If your tongue frame is smooth (as it should be), they can slide around. I welded my link plates to 1/2" thick steel plate doublers, then put a piece of rubber between the link plate and the frame. Rubber has high friction (it's why they make tires out of it) and so between the stiffness of the thicker plate steel and the higher friction of the rubber, it totally fixed the problem. I had to get longer bolts to bolt it all together, but that was fairly cheap. I used Grade 8.

The Equal-I-Zer is a great hitch. The only problem I've ever had was the link plates slipping. That is an easy fix. You fix that, you'll love the hitch.

See ya on the road,

[Rocinante]

On Wednesday we'll have our dealer, who sold us the hitch along with the trailer, check its configuration. The trailer is pretty close to dead level when hooked up to the truck, but the truck feels a little heavy in back and light in front. So, we're going to start by doing the yardstick test to see how much the truck squats down front vs. rear when we hook up the trailer (e.g. is the ratio of distance from truck to Earth the same before and after we hitch up the trailer?) Once they've taken care of that we'll weigh the rig per standard recommendations now that we've de-winterized and put water in the fresh tank. Need to see where all that water weight has settled and ensure the hitch is properly transferring enough poundage to the truck's front axle.

[m.hony]

I have thought about cutting rubber from an old inner tube to put between the link plates and a-frame. Welding more steel to the link plates sounds like a good idea, too. Another thought was to weld a couple of beads on the a-frame to stop the movement. Maybe I will have time this week to experiment with all these ideas. In October I raised everything up to see if it rode any better/different. The weight bars are no longer parallel to the a-frame. I want to lower it all back to where it was so the weight bars will be parallel to the a-frame. That in itself should help the link plates from shifting because the weight bars will just slide back and forth with no up and down. This will be the third attempt. Hopefully the third time will be a charm, not a strike out.