Equal-I-zer losing WD contribution over time?

[aftermath]

GammaDog, I have a 25FB that I tow with my tundra. My Equalizer continues to be rock solid. I can not imagine bending the bars. What size bars are you using?


Things do wear out over time and the heads that swivel do need to be torqued now and then. If the bars are bent a bit I would reverse them first. I keep mine the same orientation as stated before. I use the labels to do so. Mine is 13 years old and still working fine for me.



Sorry to hear of your predicament. I would follow up with the manufacturer. They should be able to give you good feedback. Lots of arm chair experts out there but the techs at Progressive will be the ones to talk to. Good Luck

[uncle_bob]

Hi

I think the question "what size bars are you using?" is pretty critical to all this. Much of what has happened could be explained by undersized bars.

Bob

[Mollysdad]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Hi

I think the question "what size bars are you using?" is pretty critical to all this. Much of what has happened could be explained by undersized bars.

Bob

Regardless of the bars, they're the same one's he used before when he didn't have this problem.
I'd flip the bars, and also look at the sockets the bars fit into to see if the holes got worn.
I'd also check all the welds to make sure nothing is separating.

[jimfa440]

There have been some reports in bad welds in the hitch head. If you don't see any cracks there, one simple change might show the problem. Turn your spring bars upside down, if there is a slight bend, it would reverse the CAT scale numbers.

[Profxd]

FYI 12k and 14k bars are side specific with the notches in the end offset to one side.

[Hermes]

Originally Posted by pteck

That said, I think you likely found the crux of your problem, which is loose torque on the WD receivers. Any deflection here will dramatically impact WD tension. 60 ft-lbs is the recommended torque. I've heard that new from the factory, these are torqued to 100 ft-lbs and get to about the right torque upon breaking in. It's a maintenance item that I check annually, including the hitch ball to 430 ft-lbs.

Excellent suggestion, mine were loose also, torqued them and the hitch is as good as new. Worth checking regularly.

With my 1200# bars it's not possible to turn them over on the same side since the slot at the end which goes into the receiver is not centered and they won't go all the way in. But if you turn them over and swap them on either side of the hitch, it'll work just fine (although I didn't see any curvature in my bars, it could be considered as a form of tire rotation).

[GammaDog]

UPDATE from the OP: First off, you folks are great! I appreciate the rapid outpouring of assistance, wisdom, folklore and some unrequested but informative education on vehicle dynamics!

As described below, this issue is fixed and we are on road. I'm writing this from the Airstream at Crooked River SP Georgia. With 250 miles under our belts today, I'm happy with the changes I'll describe shortly.

For those of you who tire of long posts crammed with detail let me summarize what I've learned in the past three days: Equal-i-zers can lose WD contribution over time. The strongest warning sign is this: If you used to need that short lever/bar to get the WD bars onto the L brackets most of the time, but one day you realize you don't even know where you stowed it... IT'S TIME TO CHECK AND ADJUST YOUR HITCH.

I regularly check the torque on all of the bolts but that didn't highlight the issues I discovered on Friday. Once I saw the scale tickets and realized I had not used the lever in 2 years I knew I needed to add a deeper inspection to my routine.

Answers to questions:

- This fall marks five years with this rig, including the hitch.
- We've driven 30,000-35,000 miles with this hitch
- Our Equal-I-zer is a model 10K with 1,000 WD bars. This seems to align well with our 7,300 max gross weight and measured tongue weight (920 lbs loaded for camping based on two separate CAT scale passes)
- I had been running with 5 washers (I thought it was 6 but learned differently when I removed the rivet and counted them).
- After dialing in the hitch early in its life I have not been back over the scales. In the spirit of confession I must admit it's been 4 years since my last three-pass weigh in. Praise Wally!
- At the last weigh in I had a FALR of 95%. That's within the recommended 50-100% range. On Friday it was 27% which the SAE probably calls "basically no restoration at all".
- We've had no handling issues with the rig but I had started to notice more squat in the rear of the truck and the TPMS showed the front tires on the trailer heat up a few degrees hotter and faster than the rear. In retrospect, these were two additional warning signs that I was losing WD over time.
- I believed that the bars of an Equal-I-zer were side-specific and intended to have a top and bottom. I've always installed mine with both labels facing out with the labels right side up. A deeper reading of their manual clarifies that point. On the model 10K and below (for trailers weighing under 10,000 lbs... including me and probably most of you) the bars are not side specific. For the larger 12K and 14K models, they are. That still does not clarify whether there is intended to be a top and a bottom. I've written to Equal-I-zer tech support about that and will share their answer here.

After giving thought to my situation and reading some of the early replies to this post, I decided not to flip the bars. I did tighten the bolts that hold the WD bar receivers (properly called "arm sockets" in the Equal-I-zer tech docs, I learned) until the vertical play was eliminated but the arm sockets still moved horizontally without binding. That didn't take much torque in my case, although I didn't measure it. I also purchased 1/2" ID Grade 8 (hardened) flat washers at my local NAPA store. I pulled the head and added two washers.

I've never had luck with the "tape measure from ground to the front wheel well" method, so yesterday afternoon I headed back to ride the CAT again. Bingo! The lack of play in the arm sockets plus the extra deflection from the washers brought my FALR to 96%... nearly identical to my earlier results. Both truck axles were under their gross weight limits. We headed north this morning.

Thanks to all!

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Glad it's fixed !!1

Hope you had time to stop for dinner with all that running around

(There's a pretty good / cheap Mexican restaurant up the road from Crooked River ..)

Bob

[franklyfrank]

Originally Posted by pteck

I disagree. The Equalizer is not prone to porpoising. I practically experience little to none. Partly because it has a very stiff and non-tapered WD bars, it actually attempts to lesson porpoising relative to other similar type hitches.

Porpoising is more a function of large rear overhangs. That is the distance of the rear axle to hitch ball. The larger that distance, the more leverage the trailer has to play seesaw with the nose of the tow vehicle. That seesaw motion is porpoising.

The best way to minimize porpoising is to keep the tow ball close and tight in to the rear bumper. Avoid any extra horizontal projection past the bumper. Then the tongue weight of the trailer has less authority to cause seesaw motions.

This has been a challenge with many newer trucks that have tall tailgates. Requiring extensions putting the ball further out to have clearance for tailgates against the tongue jack, yet giving the trailer more influence to porpoise, sway, and in general not be as stable as things could be. This is why you see outfits like Andy at Can-Am RV put such emphasis at modifying hitches to bring things close and tight as it has benefits to proposing, sway control, and handling.

Proposing is mainly the result of a too light tortion bar and or worn shock on th TV. A few inches closer or further away from the rear axle are meanigles once the WD is dialed in. It's more of a function of the suspension which the sway bar becomes part of.
Unless of course one tries to make a TV out of a marginal vehicle to begin with.
If you have to modify it it ant'fit for the job.

[Mollysdad]

Thanks for the update!

[devolo]

So you're running 7 washers now?

[pteck]

Originally Posted by franklyfrank

Proposing is mainly the result of a too light tortion bar and or worn shock on th TV. A few inches closer or further away from the rear axle are meanigles once the WD is dialed in. It's more of a function of the suspension which the sway bar becomes part of.
Unless of course one tries to make a TV out of a marginal vehicle to begin with.
If you have to modify it it ant'fit for the job.

Is it as meaningless as you say?

There must not be a good reason for professionals like Andy from CanAmRV to religiously perform this modification. And those who get setup by Andy with basic hitches to rave about his ability to make rigs perform.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, I removed the Equal-I-zer decals from my spring bars and replaced them with red and white reflector tape. I install my spring bars with the reflectors facing outward. For me there is no left and right, I grab a bar and install it.

I also have my "L" brackets as far back as possible. I believe that Equal-I-zer states 32"s is the max. This does two things for you. It gives the spring bars more leverage and allows for more flexibility.

My magic combination is to use 6 1/2 washers. This was the sweet spot for my Lincoln Navigator and my F-150.

[GammaDog]

Originally Posted by devolo

So you're running 7 washers now?

Yes. Simply put, I needed two more washers to compensate for the wear and tear of 4 1/2 years of use. Some of that is wear on the hitch (including arm sockets and bar bending) but some is probably the truck (including spring wear and perhaps more slop in the hitch receiver).

It seems to me that Equal-I-zer tuning relies on fairly small changes in the angle between the bars and the ground. Lots of factors can contribute to that. None of those factors add WD with wear and age.

As several responders pointed out, at some point the solution will be a new hitch.

[GammaDog]

Originally Posted by ROBERTSUNRUS

Hi, I removed the Equal-I-zer decals from my spring bars and replaced them with red and white reflector tape. I install my spring bars with the reflectors facing outward. For me there is no left and right, I grab a bar and install it.

I also have my "L" brackets as far back as possible. I believe that Equal-I-zer states 32"s is the max. This does two things for you. It gives the spring bars more leverage and allows for more flexibility.

My magic combination is to use 6 1/2 washers. This was the sweet spot for my Lincoln Navigator and my F-150.

It looks like I'm in the same zone now. My brackets are where Colonial Airstream placed them. I'll have to measure to know what that distance is. There are 2-3" of bar beyond the brackets. I can envision how more distance would increase leverage and add WD.

The real wake up call for me from this episode is that I had lost 2/3 of the WD function I once had and didn't even realize it. It was lost slowly over time, but the warning signs were there... I just didn't heed them.

So... where'd you find that 1/2 washer?

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by GammaDog

So... where'd you find that 1/2 washer?

Hi, the factory Equal-i-zer brand hitch washers are quite thick. I found a thin washer in my cans of nuts, bolts, and washers. You can buy a thin washer at any hardware store.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

One other "tidbit":

Do you pull the bars before you head into the campground? Do you only put them on once you are headed for the "big road"?

If you dig into the manual, the recommendation is that you do pull the bars if you are going to do any major backing and turning. If you sit and watch others pull in, it's pretty obvious that these maneuvers put some strain on the system.

I will freely admit that most of the time, no, we don't pull the bars early and put them on late. I also don't expect to put 120,000 miles on my hitch without replacing it .... Yet another reason to buy a "cheap" (but adequate) hitch.

Bob

[kscherzi]

Hi, I'm one of the people whose hitch head recently cracked. The part that cracked is the piece the ball is bolted onto. The crack was most obvious along the fat weld under the pin and washer area.

My hitch was about 5 years old with about 10,000 miles. I've noticed the set of the hitch relaxes some over time and added a washer or two. The bar receivers got especially sloppy as time went on, I attributed that to wear. It was no concern as when loaded the friction was unchanged.

In hindsight I think the weld crack allowed some bending to the hitch head and adding washers was only temporarily compensating. Fortunately the crack was found before anything bad happened.

The replacement hitch head equalizer sent out under warranty sway bar receivers are so tightly jammed into the hitch head I can barely move them to take the bars on and off the trailer. I need to tug and shove (sway bars inserted) with all my strength. That was not the case with my original hitch so maybe they have altered their design.

Also, if you look at the washer pin, you'll see the pin head tends to flatten out at least on washer thickness over time as all the weight distribution force is pushed into it. So adding one washer is probably normal just to compensate for that.

[franklyfrank]

Originally Posted by pteck

Is it as meaningless as you say?

There must not be a good reason for professionals like Andy from CanAmRV to religiously perform this modification. And those who get setup by Andy with basic hitches to rave about his ability to make rigs perform.

Yes there is, its called profit. And more power to them that is what it is all about being in business.
We bought our first As an 2012 28' International in 2012.
Shortly thereafter I got sucked into the never ending Hitch Drama in the AS Life and this site. Having spent my entire life in construction pulling all sorts of equipment with every imaginable trailer I never heard of anti sway hitches. In my world anti sway prevention was the driver. Had someone told us to spend 3 gs on a hitch we would have laughed at them.
After reading an article by CANAM promoting towing with a minivan I sent of an inquiry about what kind of modification do they perform to increase Payload to make a minivan functional in real life towing and camping.
As of today I haven't received a response.
I have stated in previous posts anyone believing and trusting in a hitch to save their bacon while towing with a marginal TV is in for a rude awakening when the proverbial sht hits the fan.

[out of sight]

I'll second that. A weight distribution hitch is used mainly as a crutch to enable you to tow a trailer with a tow vehicle that is too small to tow it. The safest and best solution is to get a proper sized tow vehicle.