I'm on the road now at Yosemite. The brackets that attach to the trailer are at approx. 10% angle with the bottom forward of the top. When I straighten the brackets and tighten the bolts, the brackets shift forward as soon as I tow, even on fairly flat roads. I have just climbed a 5 mile, 8% to 10% grade.
Should I try to straighten again or just make sure everything is tight and proceed?
Thanks;
John
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"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
I'm not exactly sure what you're describing here, but I do know that the big black "L" shaped brakets on our Equal-I-Zer hitch do rotate a bit, and I'm pretty sure they need to.
They only have a few distinct "notches" of vertical setup location possibility, but the exact distance between the hitch socket and the bar sockets on the tow vehicle is a fixed distance. It would be very unlikely that any of the notches on the trailer side would put the "L" brackets at the exact same distance as the hitch socket to bar socket distance. If the brackets couldn't rotate, then the bars would meet the brackets at an angle, and wouldn't slide through them evenly as you turned and so forth. If they rotate a bit, their bar bearing surface can become parallel with the bar.
Take a look at the hitch and try to imagine what I'm saying. If I'm not making sense, let me know, and I'll try and explain myself better.
Or, since I'd much rather be at Yosemite than where I am, I might get jealous, and do an even worse job.
Hi, I'm not sure exactly what you are asking about, but if you are talking about the "L" brackets, you need to tighten them up really good. On the curb side, when you tighten up the "L" bracket bolt it pushes the bracket toward the rear of the trailer and when the spring bar rubs against it and trys to move it, it moves it in the direction to make the bolt even tighter; But on the street side the spring bar movement will move the "L" bracket in the direction that loosens the bolt. Use lock-tight and use a square socket on a breaker bar to get the bolt tight. Useing a wrench will not give you enough leverage to get it tight enough to hold. Before doing this, my street side "L" bracket kept coming loose.
Bob - Thanks for the reference re: streetside bolts on the EQ hitch L bracket... noticed the same phonomenon on my hitch after LOTS of pulling - suddenly loose.... I checked it religiously for many thousands of miles but after a pull to NR of the Grand Canyon, it SUDDENLY was loose....???
Your comment make sense....
All the roads to the North Rim are VERY winding, as opposed to nearly all the previous pulls, mostly straight roads....
Will go out and add the "Lock-tight" to that bolt to preclude additional loosening.... Then again, some "Hitch maintenance" won't hurt anyone, if they do it...
BTW - I LOVE the EQ hitch!!! 1000/10K - less than $600 installed!
Hi, I'm not sure exactly what you are asking about, but if you are talking about the "L" brackets, you need to tighten them up really good. On the curb side, when you tighten up the "L" bracket bolt it pushes the bracket toward the rear of the trailer and when the spring bar rubs against it and trys to move it, it moves it in the direction to make the bolt even tighter; But on the street side the spring bar movement will move the "L" bracket in the direction that loosens the bolt. Use lock-tight and use a square socket on a breaker bar to get the bolt tight. Useing a wrench will not give you enough leverage to get it tight enough to hold. Before doing this, my street side "L" bracket kept coming loose.
ROBERTSUNRUS,
I've been having the opposite problem, my curbside L-bracket keeps coming loose.
I noticed that the frame brackets that hold the L-brackets were not installed so that the bars rested flat in the L-brackets. The bars were resting more on an edge of the L-bracket instead of the whole pad. I loosened the frame brackets, carefully tapped them into alignment, and re-tightened. I then applied Locktite blue to the square head bolts that hold the L-brackets in place, and tightened the bolts. The street side stayed tight, but the curbside loosened after about 100 miles. I then applied Locktite red and tightened it again. Again after about 100 miles, it was loose, but not as much as before.
I’m ready to put a torque wrench to it and use the next step up in the Locktite products, which is a two part epoxy. Does anyone know the torque specification for these square head bolts?
I’m still puzzled why mine is loosening on the opposite side from yours. Maybe my memory is dyslexic, but I’m pretty sure I was tightening the curbside after our last trip. I’ll check again this weekend.
Randy
__________________ Randy and Pat Godfrey
2nd VP Florida Unit WBCCI# 7591 - AIR# 17017
2007 Safari SE 23' - Daisy
2006 Lincoln Mark LT - Hoke
We pull a 25' CCD with the Equalizer and previously a 22' CCD and have had no troubles with the hitch or the a-frame brackets. They do pivot slightly on the locating screw but not to the point where it loosens. Letting the L-bracket pivot on the locating screw may allow the bracket to move slightly to follow the and stay in contact with the load bars as they deform vertically and lateraly on bumps, rises, dips and turns in the road.
I don't believe the hitch uses friction of the bars against the brackets to control sway but instead relies on the spring action of the bars held lateraly (side to side) and vertically as they try to resist turning movements. I do put some grease on the L-brackets and the load bars where they rub on the L-brackets and the L-shaped clips to reduce wear on the bars, brackets and clips.
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Don (KD6UVT) & Gail Williams
What do you want to be in life, a spectator or a participant?
Hi, rgodfrey. I don't remember reading the torque specs for the square headed bolts, but I do know you can't get them tight enough with an open end wrench. I use a square socket and a 1/2" breaker bar. Because they are a coarse thread, it takes more torque to make them stay in place. Also I hold both "L" brackets with the bottom end toward the rear of the trailer as I crank down on the square bolts. Since I did it this way, and I check them every chance I get, they have never come loose again.
I dumped my Equalizer on ebay because the L brackets constantly loosened on our 28 Classic; loc-tite or not. One L Bracket even fell off once leaving me with a hanging WD bar! So I had 1/2 of an Equalizer!
Hated it!
I thought I was the only one with rotating L Brackets but apparently I was not.
May I be so bold as to suggest that a CALL to the Equal-I-Zer tech dep't. is in order here.
If you are having difficulties with their product, I'm SURE that the company wants to hear about it ....AND.....I'm equally sure (pun, anyone?) that they will have a solution to your problem.
I did email equil-i-zer. They told me that, on my unit, the propane gas line needs to be relocated in order for the curbside lower bracket bolt to rest tight against the frame. The dealer who installed my hitch claims he has never heard of this but will change the installation to conform.
We now have put an additional 1,000 miles on the hitch since my last post. The brackets have remained at an angle but the bolts have stayed tight. However, since the bar rests on the front edge of the bracket, I am getting wear there instead of on the flat surface. I have a date with the dealer on Monday to reinstall.
Does anyone know if a Reese requires a reroute of the gas line? Guess what I'm considering.
John
__________________
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
I did email equil-i-zer. They told me that, on my unit, the propane gas line needs to be relocated in order for the curbside lower bracket bolt to rest tight against the frame. The dealer who installed my hitch claims he has never heard of this but will change the installation to conform.
We now have put an additional 1,000 miles on the hitch since my last post. The brackets have remained at an angle but the bolts have stayed tight. However, since the bar rests on the front edge of the bracket, I am getting wear there instead of on the flat surface. I have a date with the dealer on Monday to reinstall.
Does anyone know if a Reese requires a reroute of the gas line? Guess what I'm considering.
John
umm...I just located the LP outside of the bracket bolts, no need to relocate any lines. Slip the bolt OVER the LP line so as not to pinch it. Maybe you can check yourself and not rely on the dealer?
I probably have close to 50k miles on my Eq, other than retourquing the bolts occasionaly (45 lb/ft on the socket bolts, 200 lb/ft max on the 3/4" bolts-no breaker bar required!?-justa good torque wrench) and a little grease now an then it has been trouble free, reliable, and rock steady. I have watched my buddies struggle with other hitches, I'll stick with the Eq.
If you are having difficulties I suspect it is not properly setup. Again, do it yourself, don't rely on a dealer. "It aint rocket science", and if you need to readjust on a trip you should be familiar with your equipment. This is true for an Eq or any hitch. and any hitch requires some amount of maint.
I agree with Lew, PROGRESS MFG. has great support, call and ask for Josh, he'll hook you up.
__________________
Life is Good-Camping all around New England
Good people drink good beer-Hunter S Thompson
"It aint rocket science", and if you need to readjust on a trip you should be familiar with your equipment. This is true for an Eq or any hitch. and any hitch requires some amount of maint.
I agree. If you make substantial changes to the trailer load, you'll need to know how to adjust whatever kind of hitch you have.
I'm still perplexed with the problems some are reporting. I've never had any problems with anything getting loose, much less falling off..
I just went out and looked at ours to refamiliarize myself with the setup. One thing that may be different about our particular experience is that we added the stainless A-frame potectors to the trailer that come with Classics. My theory was that they would keep the frame from being damaged if we ever wanted to change hitches. Anyway, there are brackets that clamp down on the A frame on each side. There is a bolt and nut at the top and bottom on each. They're whanged down pretty tight. Maybe the frame protectors allowed the dealer to tighten them more than usual or something, but they've never loosened up.
The "L" brackets that the hitch bars bear on are then held inside the first set of brackets. Both of our "L" brackets are free to rotate by a small amount, maybe 5 degrees total. They can't rotate more than that because they're constrained by the slots in which they are held. I maintain that the rotation is important. Otherwise, the bar will wear against only one part of the "L", thus accelerating its wear. I believe the square bolt that protrudes from the "L" is only there to constrict the vertical movement of the "L", and the square bolts on our hitch rotate along with the "L"s. I can rock either "L" a few degrees with my fingers, the one on the curb side being a little easier to turn than the other one. I think there is friction on the rotation of the "L"s that is coming form the heads of the frame brackets bolts beneath the "L". But I don't believe that friction to be at all important.
Am I missing something? Specifically which bolts do you think you are having problems with?
Oh, one other thing. Motoman is dead right about the friction. We always keep a little grease on all the moving parts, including the L-bar interfaces. Prevents noise, but in no way diminishes the stability of the hitch.
I did email equil-i-zer. They told me that, on my unit, the propane gas line needs to be relocated in order for the curbside lower bracket bolt to rest tight against the frame. The dealer who installed my hitch claims he has never heard of this but will change the installation to conform.
We now have put an additional 1,000 miles on the hitch since my last post. The brackets have remained at an angle but the bolts have stayed tight. However, since the bar rests on the front edge of the bracket, I am getting wear there instead of on the flat surface. I have a date with the dealer on Monday to reinstall.
Does anyone know if a Reese requires a reroute of the gas line? Guess what I'm considering.
John
John,
If the 'relocation' involves the LP line that runs down the curb side of the 'A' frame, all that's required is a slight drop of the line (easy since it's copper, especially if you disconnect the forward fitting) to allow the lower bolt to pass between the LP line and the trailer frame. That's it!
Then tighten those puppies to the specified torque and you should be good to go. I find the Equal-i-Zer the easiest to connect and remove, and it is doing a fine job for me!
BillTex: Are the 3/4" bolts (200 ft/lb torque) the square head bolts that hold the L-brackets at the proper height adjustment?
AgZep: You may have something in that the brackets may need to rotate slightly to keep the L-bracket pad flush with the bar while underway. What I don’t want is for that rotation to back-out the square head bolt so that the L-bracket drops away. The square bolts do rotate with the L-brackets as you said.
I went to my trailer on Saturday (in storage) and checked; it is the curbside that keeps coming loose. It’s somewhat loose again after our last 200 mile pull. I did email Equalizer on this a while ago and haven’t received a reply yet. That’s unusual as I got a quick reply from Josh on another question. I’ll email again, maybe they didn’t get my last inquiry.
Randy
__________________ Randy and Pat Godfrey
2nd VP Florida Unit WBCCI# 7591 - AIR# 17017
2007 Safari SE 23' - Daisy
2006 Lincoln Mark LT - Hoke
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Hi, I'm not sure exactly what you are asking about, but if you are talking about the "L" brackets, you need to tighten them up really good. On the curb side, when you tighten up the "L" bracket bolt it pushes the bracket toward the rear of the trailer and when the spring bar rubs against it and trys to move it, it moves it in the direction to make the bolt even tighter; But on the street side the spring bar movement will move the "L" bracket in the direction that loosens the bolt. Use lock-tight and use a square socket on a breaker bar to get the bolt tight. Useing a wrench will not give you enough leverage to get it tight enough to hold. Before doing this, my street side "L" bracket kept coming loose.
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