Hensley or....

BarneyS wrote:
Someone several pages back said that your picture showed the hitch head to be centered on the trailer. I disagree! Your picture shows the hitch head turned to the right (bottom in the picture). This means that the right hand strut bar is too short and the left one is too long. You need to adjust them very accurately so the distance from the edge of the orange hitch head to an identical point on the frame on each side is the same. Then you tighten the adjustment nut and lower the adjustment arm over the top of the strut. This will lock everything in place and the hitch head cannot move left or right.

The symptoms you described are consistent with the struts being either not adjusted correctly and/or loose and your picture confirms this. It has nothing to do with the spring bar adjustment whether by jacks or chains.

You MUST get the hitch head centered on the A-frame via those struts or the hitch will not operate the way it should.
Hope this helps. :)
Barney

Barney,

The strut bars are adjusted so that a measurement taken from the corner of the head back to opposing corners of the frame are equal. The head is indeed square with the trailer. The struts are also tight, no wiggle\play in them at all.

The head isn't turned on the trailer, its pivoted over via the links between the upper and lower section.

As for the spring bars... I am not referring to how many links are hanging, I'm talking about the angle between the bracket and the end of the bar. Unless I am mistaken, any forces placed on the chains if they are at an angle other than perpendicular to the bar will transfer those forces to whatever it is attached to. With the brackets sitting 1.5" back further than they should have been, they were not only exerting a force vertically, but also on the horizontal. i.e. the chains were trying to not only carry weight, but they were pulling the head back towards the trailer.

My chains were like this \ rather than |