Old Reese Equipment Good Enough?

[on-a-roll]

Hello,
We have a Argosy 22 trailer. When we purchased it the seller included some Reese hitch parts. As close as I can tell they are an older style Reese Light Duty Weight Distribution set up and a Reese Friction Sway Controller. Am I right? Are these what I think they are?

Our Old Reese Friction Sway Control. This looks to be the same as this. https://www.etrailer.com/Weight-Dist...ies/83660.html




Our Distribution Frame Attachment Point.




Our Old Reese Weight Distribution Set




New Reese Light Duty Weight Distribution. I think this is a newer version of what we have. https://www.etrailer.com/Weight-Dist...e/RP66558.html




We are intending to spend extended travel and time in this trailer over the next year or two. The trailer is pretty much an aluminum tent inside at this point. When trailer shell is back on I can get an accurate weight. When we brought the trailer home, not using the added Reese parts, the trailer towed great. No sway. We could not hardly tell we were towing. Would this trailer need additional sway control or weight distribution set up? I guess the only way to know for sure is to go through the process of hooking it up? Do these Reese components age? Do they wear out over time with use?

Our tow vehicle is a 2011 Ram 1500.
Trailer is an Argosy 22 ft ... 5800 gvwr ... 3720 factory dry weight ... 410 tongue weight. I've also seen 560 as tongue weight. Weights specs are from literature, not actual weights.

Thanks.
On-A-Roll

[HowieE]

As for the older Reese parts the only way to make a judgement on them is to inspect the ware points. The trunnion pins on the forward end of the WD bars should not show ware that has flattened them on the contact side. The trunnion cups in the hitch head. The saddles on the ends of the trailing bars. If these look usable then a good sand blasting and panting will make them usable. I have never seen any reason for the separate friction plate system. If the system is set up correctly the bars resting squarely on the saddles is hoe the system was designed to work. That said very few Reese system were ever set up correctly because of the time necessary to do it right.

The new system you show is a renaming of the Draw Tight system. Draw Tight bought Reese. That relies on the friction between 2 flat surfaces removing the need to correctly set up the Reese system and far less effective than the Reese.

If you are not into repainting the old system look closely at a new Andersen hitch. Now that said there will be a few members that will chime in saying that it can't work. But if you look at those that say it does work you should be convinced.