hENSLEY HITCH

[RoadKingMoe]

Hey LTD93, see the stainless covers on the A frame arms in front of the trailer but behind the LP bottles?


That's what I was referring to that you can't put U bolts over. Note in the following picture (I know the A frame is a little hard to see) that they're gone.

[Bud Brown]

The shear bolts are the first point to fail (shear) when overstressed by a sudden emergency braking event, allowing the frame bracket to move on the trailer frame. Most likely the trailer brakes were not adjusted correctly for this to occur.

If the U bolts are over torqued, the frame bracket may not slide on the frame. Worse yet , if the trailer brakes are not fully engaged at this point and the frame bracket does not slide, then the full load is transfered to the strut assembly. The strut assembly will most likely bend near the threads at this point. Again this is a designed failure point. Compare these design failure points to the current Indy cars when they hit the wall. Each component absorbs the impact as it folds up. The idea is to protect you. The shear bolts and strut are cheap, in fact they are covered by a lifetime warranty.

Hopefully your rig will be stopped by this point, and it will be behind you. Most systems would have allowed to the trailer to jack-knife.

[John]

road king moe,

do you have a close up shot of your H/A for John HD to see. That's a nice set-up you have there. Also, I left on my stainless steel and had no interference with the u-bolts.
John

[John]

disregard - didn't see previous post.

[RoadKingMoe]

Originally posted by John
road king moe,

do you have a close up shot of your H/A for John HD to see. That's a nice set-up you have there. Also, I left on my stainless steel and had no interference with the u-bolts.
John

Thanks, John. Here's a close-up. You can click on the image for an even larger picture. The spring bars initially shipped (shown here) were 1,000 lb and even cranked all the way up, I couldn't quite get the truck quite level. Hensley swapped them for 1,400 lb bars at no charge. I also had to shorten the chains a bit... went a little overboard extending them. Considering a pair of those coiled cables vs chains anyway.

It was the Hensley rep that told me to make sure to remove the stainless covers. Hard head that I am, I had to try it with them. With 45 lbs on the u-bolts I could slide the right cover pretty easily (had drilled the rivets out to lower the gas line below the u-bolt plate). Without the cover, I couldn't move the mount even with a large rubber mallet. That convinced me he was correct.

[John]

I understand your point on the SS covers moving. I'm happy that mine didn't move during my trip to B.C. & back to FL, but I will remove them now. No sense in risking a possible problem when you have the correct information at hand. Thanks for sharing !!
John

[john hd]

moe,

thats quite the set up, seeing it from the site makes it much easier to understand how it works.

working for a utility has given me the chance to drive just about every concievable combination of trucks and trailers. from 1/2 ton pickups with 3000 lb. trailers to 50,000 lb. 6x6 digger derrick trucks with 4 position stringing racks that are almost 30k fully loaded.

so i might have a little more experiance than others, maybe not.

my truck and trailer handle and drive quite well compared to some of the stuff i have driven at work.

but, that does not mean that someone else with the same setup would not have problems.

thanks for enlightening me, now i understand better.

john