Stripped bolt on Reese WDH

Couldn't have been many threads holding those bolts. That was destined to fail from the initial installation. For maximum holding strength, the threads or nuts if used, must be at least as thick as the cross section of the bolt.

While you're at it, I would also seal those old unused holes in the frame to prevent moisture from entering and rusting the tubing from the inside out. Which can't be seen until it is too late.

Not surprised to see this. There are only 1 1/2 threads of the Reese forming screw engaged into the A-frame tubing. Not sure what vintage your brackets are, but older ones were not manufactured well and don't fit that well. I had this problem and ordered new ones from Reese at no charge to me after explaining the issue. See photos below. Even then, the radius of the bracket still does not match the radius on the A-frame tubing. This THE weak point of these Reese hitches. They have their riv-nuts that you can buy but the hole looks too damaged.

The photos show what I did. I had the Reese screws in ours back out and get damaged in just one season with just under 1K TW.

I cut out the thin plates on the ends of the A-frame tubing for access (welded back on afterwards). Found lots of rust inside the tubing. Made up a backer plate and welded on a couple of flange nuts and a 3rd nut to allow me to push in a removable pipe. Welded a bolt onto the end of a piece of conduit (removed zinc coating first). Pushed plate into position (after drilling appropriately sized holes in the A-frame). Mounted the Reese bracket using a couple of 1 1/2" long 1/2-13 flange head bolts. I also made up a spacer plate from 3/16" flat stock and ground one edge to match the Reese bracket. I also drilled a couple of 1/4" holes in the tubing and plug-welded the backer plate to the tubing, ground the welds down and painted.

Reese says to torque the standard forming bolts to 50 ft-lbs. I think this doesn't work well with only 1 1/2 threads engaged into the A-frame and is an invitation for trouble. With the nuts I have, they have more threads engaged and can be torqued to 75 ft-lbs.

I think riv-nuts should be a minimum but even then may have problems on higher tongue weights. The head of a riv-nuts protrudes and you have would need to make a spacer plate to allow the plate to be tight against the bracket.

I already have a MIG welder so that helped. Took a while to find the flange head nuts and bolts, but I saw some in a hardware store recently. If you do decide to get new cam arm brackets, I'd suggest buying them from e-trailer.com as it took quite a while for me to get them from Reese. Once I had all the items in hand, it was only about 4 hours of work to do this.

You could also slide the bracket back an inch and re-drill the holes.
Me? I had the same thing happen and welded and re-drilled the holes.
IIRR Reese calls for a 7/16" drill.

Might also consider using rivnuts.

Or of there is a hole nearby large enough to pass a bolt through, you could snake the bolt through the frame and put the nut/lockwasher on the outside.

enblethen wrote:
If this is a "C" channel frame that will work.
If it is a box tube frame then you could collapse the tube if tightened too much.

This here!! If you just drill through you will take the chance of smashing the square tubing. The option I would do if it was me (and because it is easy for me) is to weld that bracket and never have to think about it again. It would take a good welder about 20 minutes to do. But that is just me

Chris

Yes, box tube.
Sleeve is a GREAT idea, easy to do. Thanks for the idea !
I don't plan on torquing it very much as the bolts are in sheer, not tension. Just enough to tighten.
I'm going to see what Reese has to say about it tomorrow.

If this is a "C" channel frame that will work.
If it is a box tube frame then you could collapse the tube if tightened too much.

The other option would be to put in a sleeve so when you tighten it you won't crush the frame. I have seen it where they out a plate in from the other side, but not sure if that works good or not?