Hitch and Bars Storage While Camping?

:) Hi, I made a tray inside of my storage compartment for my spring bars. I turn my hitch head on it's side and use my hitch lock to lock it to the bottom of one of my "L" brackets. The 5/8" lock fits in the square hole in the "L" bracket.

Black garbage bag over greasy parts and all go into the street side storage when the blocks and chocks come out.

I put an aluminum tool box across the tongue to hold my boards and chocks. When those items come out, the hitch bars go in. The ball mount comes out of the truck and the ball is inserted into the coupler and locked. I made a carrying tool to handle the heavy ball mount with one hand. This way the shank can be rotated out of the way, the ball stays cleaner and I ain't knocking my legs into a greasy ball. Being locked in the coupler adds a degree of security to both the part and the trailer, and is safe from a kid opening the latch and the heavy part falling. The other hitch parts, along with other things, are safely stored away inside a dry and locked toolbox.

My hitch and bars go in the street side storage compartment. I never leave it in the truck. Actually I just brushed past it the other day in between disconnecting and moving the Excursion. Got grease on my shorts.

They make brackets that bolt to the Aframe and you can slide the hitch in. But it’s still in the weather. Put it away and be done with it.

I have the same hitch and leave the bars on the "L" brackets on the A-frame. The hitch sits on a 4x4 board that the tongue jack foot sits on and a safety chain is padlocked around the ball. I have sometimes placed the bars in the truck bed with has a lockable cover. In 20 years of RVing I've never lost anything hitch related. This may not be the most secure but has worked for me.

Baja Man wrote:
I have a 14K Equalizer Hitch with the square bars. In the past I have left it attached to truck hitch with a hitch pin lock Now that my new to me truck sits higher, the tailgate, when lowered, hits hitch ball when hitch is installed.

What do all of you do?

I'd suspect that if the hitch ball interferes with your tailgate you probably have a somewhat unusual situation as most of us just leave the head mounted in the receiver. I certainly do as moving that head any more than necessary is the last thing I want to do - the spring bars live in the front pass through storage compartment.