Hensley Arrow: How does it REALLY work?
There have been several discussions on this hitch that have become somewhat 'controversial'. I am NOT trying to stir this controversy/bashing back up. Instead, I'd like to see a good, intelligent di...
Forum Discussion
tluxon wrote:
Anybody who still thinks the hitch is locked from the trailer's "perspective" please see the thread, Problem with stopping straight and Hensley Arrow. There are at least a few Hensley owners who believe that the trailer tongue is allowed to swing side-to-side in the event that the tow vehicle is braking harder than the trailer.
Tim
Tim, since you are linking to my issue with stopping straight with the Hensley, PLEASE look at the entire post to see how that saga unfolded, so that your conclusion is correct. If I am wrong, FLAME AWAY but please prove where I went wrong!
The trailer brakes had an electric issue which had nothing to do with the hitch. When the van pulled hard to the left it was the left side trailer brakes NOT GETTING THE SAME VOLTAGE as the right side trailer brakes. The trailer nose would pull to the right trying to turn the vans nose hard left. If anything, the Hensley kept everything inline!
Cranking the gain on the brake controller ensured that more voltage was adequately available for all brakes to apply evenly. This electrical gremlin was traced to the back of the van's trailer plug. There was some visible corrosion from water and electricity (towing in the rain) that made it look like some voltage was being bled off (my wiring diagram is in the trailer or I could tell you which terminal was bleeding to where beside the brake terminal) meaning not all the required voltage made it to brakes.
It looks like the brakes on the trailer are wired in series because when I followed the brake wire - it went to the right side (passenger side of the trailer) first and then crossed over to the trailer's left side or driver side on the tow vehicle. I can only speculate that had there been 4 wires in parallel, ONE from EACH brake drum to the front of the trailer where there was a common bus, then losing some voltage would not have raised such a pull issue but I will leave that speculation to the electricians or mechanics to prove or disprove.
Please if you have any different theory on this, PM me or email me because I would love to find out from the experts!
Once the inside of the trailer plug board was cleaned of any corrosion with fresh dialectric grease, there was no more bleeding off of voltage and I could lower the gain to almost nothing where the Hensley would come forward as the van was doing all the braking, but the pull was negligible as the hitch was properly adjusted.
With that electrical problem, the Hensley kept the the van and trailer in line - albeit puling hard to the left. Had I tried this with our Equal-i-zer it may have caused an irrecoverable jackknife at the hitch (that being the pivot point with the EQ) but I wasn't about to prove any theories, since I had already paid one too many deductibles in the flood of our basement on June 10th.
Mike.
