Equalizer Hitch Question
Installed new equalizer hitch with sway control yesterday. Coming home when making street turns would hear popping noise. This is first bumper pull trailer so am not familiar with noises to expect ,...
Forum Discussion
RinconVTR wrote:
Ron - you are clearly out of your element here.
I don't have my hitch on hand this very minute, but this is the E2 knuckle picture from the manual, and the top and bottom protruding "shafts" have radius ends. BALL ENDS.
What got me worked up was people claiming there is more friction at the lubricated head (be it knuckle of the E2 or square socket end of the Equalizer) has drastically more friction to reduce sway than the the un-lubricated L brackets. Its as simple and ridiculous as that.
If you have an E2 I can see where you say the lubricated knuckle end does not offer any sway control. Your provided pictures to my non engineering eye do seem to support your claim. But I do think your claim of the square socket end of the 4 way not playing a large part in the sway is entirely incorrect.
I happen to have been getting ready to post a step by step disassemble of my 4 way on the DIY forum, so I have a few pictures I can post here. I always kept the head lubed and you will see from the wear that there is a large amount of force applied by the sockets.
This is a bottom up picture of my hitch. In the picture you can see how the square sockets slide in the head as the trailer turns. the red dot in the picture is the bottom of the nut for the hitch ball.
Below is a picture of a square socket with the grease wiped off. You can see the polishing that occurs on the sockets from the wear. The sockets are case hardened so they are not gouged from the sliding pressure in the head.
Now two pictures of the the head with the square sockets removed and the grease cleaned off. In these pictures you can see the wear caused by the sliding sockets in a well greased Equal-i-zer 4 point sway control hitch. For those of you who run this hitch I would strongly suggest you annually disassemble it and inspect.
Top:
Bottom: the white specs are from the paper towel I used to clean the head.
To my non engineering eye these wear marks in spite of the grease are a strong indicator of where the real pressure is in the system.
