Anyone broken a Hensley?

dieselsyndrome wrote:

Also, have you had a chance to break look at the spring bar bushings? I'm very curious to know their condition.

Note to self - keep a watch on the area that failed.

I am not sure how to take apart the area to look at the spring bar bushings. But if anyone wants to analyse this hitch you are more than welcome. Because otherwise it is being sold for scrap metal.

Watching the hitch is a good idea. I perhaps was always looking at the wrong area. I looked at the orange part, struts and the screw buckles. I have always stored the hitch with a light coating of oil (Rust Check) and the hitch was religiously greased. I even oiled any moving parts. The bolts were all torque checked prior to the trip.

I would add to those of you towing with this hitch or any other than any unusual noises coming from the hitch area is cause for concern. Inspect your hitch immediately. Perhaps if I knew where to look for a failure I could have prevented the near accident that would ensued had it broken while driving.

Easiest thing to do would be to wipe the grease off the bottom and take a pic looking straight into the bushings.

The bushings where the spring bars go into the head are wear items. I'm assuming you've never checked them before since you don't know how they come out - basically, you remove the zerk fittings at the top - that releases the spring bars. There is a single bolt between where the spring bars go into the head itself. Take that bolt out and the bushing will come right out.

However, with the damage your head has, chances are it won't come out. So a picture looking straight into the bottom where the bushings are would work, once cleared of grease.

I'm curious to see how ovaled out the bushings were, and whether or not it was enough to possibly contribute to the failure by binding or something like that.

Also, I wouldn't scrap all of the unit - the jack screws and some of the assorted pieces, as well as the one good strut bar, would be worth more than scrap to a Hensley owner. Might be worthwhile to throw them on craigslist before scrapping them. In fact, I might be interested in the screw jacks for the right price as spares.