Good and Bad about Blue Ox Sway Pro
I just purchased a 2013 Cougar 32RBK travel trailer and I am towing it with a 2006 Ford F350 Crew Cab With the 6.0 Powerstroke. I am looking at getting the Blue Ox Sway Pro and would like to here the ...
Forum Discussion
Definitely not an engineer so please feel free to laugh at my comments...
I thought the whole point of any tapered bar such as what is on the Blue Ox is that tip will flex more than the base. If its the same cross section, but the material is thinner it should flex easier and faster than the thicker material towards the end of the bar going into the socket. It should be "progressively" easier to flex the bar the farther away you move from the socket as the bar tapers down in thickness.
While the amount of force exerted to the hitch head is constant, isnt the bar designed to be progressively softer the further away from the head? My thoughts are that is progressive in nature. The tips can flex easier to help absorb any shocks or small movements and as the load against them ramps up during a turn they resist flexing the further out of line it gets.
If not, what is the point of tapering the bar? Weight savings? You could make the entire bar smaller in cross section. It would be much cheaper than having those bars made with the taper to just saw cut mults out of plain bar stock. Maybe bar travel? If the whole bar was thin maybe it would flex too much. Make it too thick and it would transfer every small shock load into the TT/TV combo and hitch head.
I will be the first to admit I was pretty upset with Blue Ox when they changed the design. My concerns at the time were that they didnt tell anybody about it and even Blue Ox customer service wasnt ready to answer the how and why questions. I ended up frustrated with it all and sent it back. Now that its been explained by users and Blue Ox the system again looks intriguing enough to try.
I thought the whole point of any tapered bar such as what is on the Blue Ox is that tip will flex more than the base. If its the same cross section, but the material is thinner it should flex easier and faster than the thicker material towards the end of the bar going into the socket. It should be "progressively" easier to flex the bar the farther away you move from the socket as the bar tapers down in thickness.
While the amount of force exerted to the hitch head is constant, isnt the bar designed to be progressively softer the further away from the head? My thoughts are that is progressive in nature. The tips can flex easier to help absorb any shocks or small movements and as the load against them ramps up during a turn they resist flexing the further out of line it gets.
If not, what is the point of tapering the bar? Weight savings? You could make the entire bar smaller in cross section. It would be much cheaper than having those bars made with the taper to just saw cut mults out of plain bar stock. Maybe bar travel? If the whole bar was thin maybe it would flex too much. Make it too thick and it would transfer every small shock load into the TT/TV combo and hitch head.
I will be the first to admit I was pretty upset with Blue Ox when they changed the design. My concerns at the time were that they didnt tell anybody about it and even Blue Ox customer service wasnt ready to answer the how and why questions. I ended up frustrated with it all and sent it back. Now that its been explained by users and Blue Ox the system again looks intriguing enough to try.
