Loose hitch
At 35MPH I hit an unexpected dip in the road over the weekend and noticed the washers were loose while in hooking. I adjusted and re tightened bolts. Does this happen often?
Forum Discussion
Airstreamer67 wrote:
Quote: "I don't know about your hitch, but on mine those bolts take around 400 lbs of tourque. Unless you are using a 3/4 breaker bar you will have a hard time getting anywhere near that. Take it to a tire shop and get them to use a 1" tourqe wrench to get it to spec."
Perhaps the ball with a large nut will take 400 ft pounds of torque. But the small bolt and related adjustment washers on my hitch's tilt adjustment is quite small and would twist apart at any torque nearing that value.
I just cinch the nut down a bit and have never had a problem. If I did, I'd put a little lock tight type juice on the threads to keep them from backing off.
I believe he was talking about the two large bolts that hold the hitch head on to the shank. Those bolts, if not tight, will allow the hitch head to pivot, which, I think is what the OP was talking about. Those two bolts are usually spec'd to torque around 300-400ft/lbs.
See the typical Reese install instructions here.
Equal-i-zer intructions here.
Barney
