Grease on the ball?
A friend we camp with always puts grease on his trailer ball. He says I should do it as well. Is this a good idea?
Forum Discussion
CavemanCharlie wrote:dodge guy wrote:
Yes, when maintained properly grease does not ruin a ball/coupler from dirt. On my long trips of 1-3000 miles I have never had any grit in the grease. And of course a farm implement store will tell you no grease, they operate in dirty/dusty environments. Not too mention that the majority of those hitches are pintle hooks!
I have the same ball for 13 years and it shows no signs of galling. My buddies hitch OTOH he never lubes it and it shows! The ball has gouges in it, and we have had to retorque a few times already! He just refuses to put on some grease because it is just one more step. I don't think he even carries any type of grease with him even for wheel bearings!
No pintle hooks on farms that I live and work on around here. In fact, I've only seen one of them in 50 years.
Either a regular bumper hitch ball or a 5th wheel goose neck is waht we have. No grease on them.
But, I am beginning to believe that this ball wear problem is related to the Weight Distribution Hitch device. It puts more force on the ball. Grease may be needed in these cases. Nothing on the farm has one of those.
yep, your right. I should have thrown that in there. most farm implements have four wheels and a tongue that swings down, so the tongue weight is only about 15 lbs! even a boat has minimal tongue weight.
Like you say WD hitches put a lot of pressure on the ball which increases the wear on the ball without grease. so the wear with a WD hitch without grease will be bad! as compared to no WD or very light tongue weight with WD.
