RE: Bent Clips
My Equalizer came with my trailer when I purchased it in 2009. The clips were also bent and it made more noise than I was used to. We had a smaller Equalizer on our previous trailer. I got it home and reset the whole thing. Following the guidelines, I noticed that the L brackets were too close to the ball. I moved things around to where they were designed, got new clips and it hasn't caused any trouble these last 11 years. I don't know why they put them where they were as there was nothing in the way to install them correctly.