Hensley Arrow Owners: FYI, Check your Wear Items
Catching up on some much needed maintenance on the Arrow. It's been 9 years or so since I painted it black, and now it's starting to show some rust again. This time I opted for a complete disassembly so that I could sand and paint the cam surfaces.
The bearings in the hitch are assembled just like wheel bearings on the trailer, with a bearing, grease seal, castle/cotter, and dust cap. The grease still looked good, but you can't really take this apart and not clean/repack the bearings.
As a reminder to all HA owners, there are parts of the hitch that Hensley considers to be "wear items". The parts I replace every 3-4 years are the bronze wear bushing that the spring bars insert into and the downtube and clip that attach to the trailing end of the spring bars. I didn't take a pic of the downtube, but it suffers from the same elongated hole where you attach the spring bars. Good news is that you can take those out and flip them over and get some additional use from them.
I have found that these holes will elongate from wear:
In addition, I spotted a new issue this year. Look at the frame bracket where the right jack tube attaches, it's bent down somewhat:
Taking a closer look reveals that the weld has cracked:
I thought at first of having this re-welded, but decided to replace both brackets. If this were to let go under the full tension of the spring bar no telling what other damage it would cause.
The hitch is 16 years old, so I wouldn't call this a manufacturing defect, but rather the product of our ever-deteriorating road system. Every trip the rig gets beat to death a little worse on our interstates, especially in/around NYC. The HA carries 1200 lbs of tongue weight and so it really takes a beating on these rough roads.
Next time you drop the hitch to grease the ball, take the spring bars and jack tubes off and give everything a good going over. Hensley has been great in terms of always having somebody to answer the phone and take questions, and if you order parts they ship same day.
The bearings in the hitch are assembled just like wheel bearings on the trailer, with a bearing, grease seal, castle/cotter, and dust cap. The grease still looked good, but you can't really take this apart and not clean/repack the bearings.
As a reminder to all HA owners, there are parts of the hitch that Hensley considers to be "wear items". The parts I replace every 3-4 years are the bronze wear bushing that the spring bars insert into and the downtube and clip that attach to the trailing end of the spring bars. I didn't take a pic of the downtube, but it suffers from the same elongated hole where you attach the spring bars. Good news is that you can take those out and flip them over and get some additional use from them.
I have found that these holes will elongate from wear:
In addition, I spotted a new issue this year. Look at the frame bracket where the right jack tube attaches, it's bent down somewhat:
Taking a closer look reveals that the weld has cracked:
I thought at first of having this re-welded, but decided to replace both brackets. If this were to let go under the full tension of the spring bar no telling what other damage it would cause.
The hitch is 16 years old, so I wouldn't call this a manufacturing defect, but rather the product of our ever-deteriorating road system. Every trip the rig gets beat to death a little worse on our interstates, especially in/around NYC. The HA carries 1200 lbs of tongue weight and so it really takes a beating on these rough roads.
Next time you drop the hitch to grease the ball, take the spring bars and jack tubes off and give everything a good going over. Hensley has been great in terms of always having somebody to answer the phone and take questions, and if you order parts they ship same day.
