Reese WD Hitch failure

Frozen001 wrote:
Hello,

The dealer first tried to use a Reese Pro setup up with 1000lbs round bars. These are the type that the bars are inserted from the bottom of the hitch head. after the got everything on, in order for the chains to reach the snap up bracket, this “dealer” had to have the truck/nose of the trailer so high the tires were barely touching the ground, and the jack was fully extended with about 3” of wooden blocking under the jack. This was the last link… This is when I stepped in a told them no way, the set up is wrong. The said all they had to do was remove two washers and tip the head up more. I said no way, the head was already level, and removing the washers would result in the head having forward tilt. We are fighting two issues here. 1, the GM factory receiver has “slop” in the square tube, and when no tension is on the head, it looks like it had some slight tilt back. Under tension when the slop was taking up, the head was level. Second problem is the ball coupler is on the bottom of the trailer frame, making the chain to snap up bracket distance even further. Now mind you this was just to get on the LAST link. I told them flat out the only option was to move to the trunion style, because in my experience the bars are probably about 2 links closer to the frame. So an additional $100 later they are setting up a 1200lbs/12000 trunion style WD setup (Don’t even get me started on what they are charging him for the WD setup). This time after a mild lift of the truck and trailer tongue, we can easily get the second link under tension. However looking at the setup, I note a problem, but at this point I figure when we get home we can correct it. See if you can see the problem here (Click-able Thumbnail):



It might be hard to see, but the hitch head is tilted forward.

I just rechecked your first post which is how the trailer was set up prior to the shank break. You do make reference to not allowing the dealer to change the hitch tilt.

Also, a 650 lb tongue weight will maybe be 800 lbs when loaded. With a pickup truck, 800 or 1000 lb bars is all that would be needed. 1000 lb bars if using an SUV. 1200 lb bars is probably way too stiff.