Raising or lowering the pin box

goducks10 wrote:
I didn't have a torque wrench that would go high enough. My 1/2" drive broke prior to changing out my pin box. So I welded a socket to a 30" piece of 1" pipe. I give it all I got. I made some scribe marks around the pin box to see if I got any movement. None. It's been tight for 2 seasons of camping. Around 7-8,000 miles of driving.

It is very easy to do by your self.

#1 loosen all four bolts, I used an impact wrench on the iside of the pin box.

#2 With the front of the Pin Box supported on blocks in the bed of your truck, remove the front two bolts.

#3 rotate the front, either up or down as needed one set of holes, they should line up well enough to get the bolts back in. then rotate the pin box to match the front holes.

I didn't have a torque wrench that would go high enough. My 1/2" drive broke prior to changing out my pin box. So I welded a socket to a 30" piece of 1" pipe. I give it all I got. I made some scribe marks around the pin box to see if I got any movement. None. It's been tight for 2 seasons of camping. Around 7-8,000 miles of driving.

Sure you can do it - just don't drop it on your toes.. ;)

My Hitchhiker pin box has a sticker on it that says that the bolts should be torqued to 150 ft/lbs.

If you can't borrow/beg a torque wrench that will go that high I think that is about how much the adverage man can pull espacilly if you are laying in the bed under the 5W when you tighten them. Like has been said before use the front landing gear legs as a jack and go for it!

I used that method to install a new Demco pin box, having a couple of extra hands to operate the raise/lower switch makes life a lot easer. Using a drift pin makes bolt alignment holes a lot easer. Get one bolt started hand tight. Using that bolt as a pivot then SLOWLY have youe buddy raise/lower the 5W to align the other holes.

Piece of cake, just be very carefull.

Be careful

Use this Link to torque charts to find torque for the bolts that are on your unit. Different bolts take different torque. The bolts on your rig should also be chosen to break/sheer before the frame/pin is bent/broken. That is why you do not want to change the bolts to a heavier duty bolt/nut combo.

goducks10: what is the torque for those bolts?

Hardest part is torqueing the bolts that are towards the front. Had a neighbor help with that part. The truck/legs method works good.

I have already made an adjustment to my hitch but it's still not enough.

I'm going to try the method using the front legs to take the weight off the pin box.
Sounds like a pretty easy fix.

You can do it yourself......Hook the truck to it, lower your legs to take weight off hitch. Then take bolts out and raise/lower as needed with your legs

There should be adjustment on the hitch height. I raised mine using the hitch height adjustment.