Hensley Arrow: How does it REALLY work?

tluxon wrote:
Will, do you still have your conventional hitch drawbar and ball? That measurement from the rear axle would also be useful, but if you'd like to just estimate the distance from the rear axle to the receiver's drawbar pin hole, that'd be good to. I could just add the distance of my conventional drawbar to that for a good approximation.

Sorry, I dont have my conventional hitch drawbar anymore. It got sold, after the Hensley came along. But, I did get the measurements you wanted. I went out this morning, and did some measuring on the Excursion, Hensley drawbar, and the Citation (trailer). Here are some real-world measurements we can use:

Excursion measurements:
Excursion Rear axle (center) to receiver's drawbar pinhole: 48"

Drawbar measurements:
drawbar pinhole to drawbar plate that goes against hensley head: 11.5"

Trailer/Hensley measurements:
Hensley head opening, to trailer ball hitch: 12"
Center of trailer axles, to trailer hitch ball: aprx. 22'


Sooooo, for the purposes of our discussion, the distance from the rear axle to the trailer ball (with the Hensley & Excursion) is 48 + 11.5 + 12 = 71.5"

Note also, that the trailer hitch ball is at about the same place, as the rear linkage bar of the Hensley. That being the case, I think we can conclude that with the Excursion, the Hensley projects the pivot point to 71.5 - 47 = 24.5" behind the rear axle. That is, if the 47" we came up with earlier was measured from the rear linkage bar of the Hensley. If it was measured from the front linkage, then my original estimation of 20" was very accurate (right?)

Anyway, Tim: See what you come up with using these numbers, I know they are pretty accurate. I'll be curious to see the difference in 'moment' calculations we come up with from Tim's model, using these numbers. :)