How to identify WDH bars

It looks like you do have the good bracket and you can see the one with a curved bottom below. The bottom part has a pronounced curve to it. The one I got from Reese is two-piece design with the 2 halves welded together. The bottom and outer sides should be perfectly perpendicular. Looking at the rust around your screw heads and bracket, is that an indication the bracket has been shifting around over time? Our TW is around 950 lbs and the screws loosened shortly after installation and were tightened to the correct Reese torque. That's when I decided to do an upgrade. There is a considerable force exerted onto the brackets when the spring bar notches ride up on the cams and for higher TW and heavier spring bars, keep an eye on the forming screw tightness if screwing directly into the A-frame tubing. Then if you do find them not staying tight, look at upgrading the attachment method.

The radius of the bracket is somewhat larger than the radius of the edge of the A-frame tubing so I made a plate from 3/16" steel to allow the bracket to sit properly against the A-frame. I also included a couple of photos of what I did to attach the brackets. I made a plate with nuts welded to it and welded a 1/2" bolt to the end of a pipe, and cut an access hole in the end of the A-frame tubing to push the plate inside. Then plug-welded the inside plate to the A-frame, ground down the welds and used some touch-up paint over them. I used bolts and not the forming screws and torqued them to 75 ft-lbs and they have held tight since doing this about 2 years ago.

Some info. on the cam arm bracket is here and has some photos from JBarca. He says not to use the self-tapping screws. Not that it matters but they are correctly called "forming screws" and don't cut a thread, the screw pushes the metal away in the hole to create the thread. The potential problem with the forming screws and higher tongue weights is that the screws are 1/2" x 13 tpi and there's less than 2 threads engaged in the 1/8" wall A-frame tubing. The rivnuts supposedly hold better but I don't have any experience with them. They have a bit of a flange on them which would prevent the side of the bracket from being held tightly and fully against the A-frame which may not be a good thing for higher TW.

You don't have the HD snap-up brackets and need to replace them. The HD snap-up brackets have some additional re-enforcement but looking at internet photos may or may not have the additional mounting holes on the lower outside part. A photo of the HD type is below and you can see the additional re-enforcement which yours don't have. I thought there was always two holes on the lower part are where you can add forming screws if needed but not sure why the holes are square. I recall seeing photos of these brackets literally peeling away from the A-frame from the high vertical forces. According to e-trailer the HD snap-up brackets are needed for TW above 1,000 lbs. When I bought our DC package setup (with 800 lb bars) it came with snap-up brackets with the additional re-enforcement but have the square holes on the lower outside part. Maybe there were different production runs of the HD brackets or made in different countries? The 1st photo of the HD bracket (Reese #58392) below is from carid and the 2nd is from Amazon and one has the holes and one doesn't...

If e-trailer's info. is correct, the standard Reese chains are good for up to 1200 lbs TW so maybe you need to replace them? I would check with Reese on that. Maybe the U-bolts in the bar ends also need replacing in that case?

If you find anything I've posted is useful, happy to help. FWIW, I absolutely love the way the Reese DC WDH performs whether it's on a freeway or on twisty roads in the mountains. Highly recommended!

myredracer wrote:

ScottG wrote:


Thanks for the pics and info.
I found out I need to go to 1500# bars and I know my old ones are no where close to that.

Scott

On the lengths of the bars, I don't know if the 1500 lb bars are shorter or longer than the 800 & 1200 lb ones and if yes, by how much. One thing I discovered is that the distance Reese specifies from the coupler to the cam arm bracket of 19-3/8" was too short for the 800 lb bars and didn't leave any space to adjust the cam arm as you can see in this photo. I ended up having to drill new holes for the bracket's bolts farther away from the coupler. It didn't take very long before I found the 800 lb bars were too under-sized though and upgraded to 1200. Didn't have to drill new holes after all, pffft... It might be a good idea to clamp the cam arm bracket on temporarily to check that there is an appropriate amount of threads on either side of the nuts to allow aligning the bar ends with the cams before drilling into the A-frame.

If going to 1500 lb bars, there is a possibility that the Reese forming bolts will loosen for tongue weights around 1200 lbs and up. You can try Reese's rivnuts but not sure how well they work in the long run and for higher TW. I welded nuts on a plate and pushed the plate inside the A-frame and then bolted through the A-frame tubing to the nuts inside the A-frame tubing. This is a very secure and reliable method and not that hard to do. There's one or two other methods as well. I can post some photos of what I did if interested.

Do you already have the cam arms/brackets? If not, there was a poor production run a few years ago and the brackets are curved on the bottom and don't lay flat against the underside of the A-frame tubing. I got new ones from Reese at no cost. For 1500 lb bars and the higher TW, you want to make sure it all aligns together well. I also made some spacers with a curved edge for the outside of the A-frame because the A-frame tubing and bracket have a slightly different radius.

IIRC, there's also a heavy duty snap-up bracket and/or additional bolts you can use to bolt these brackets to the A-frame for the higher rated 1500/1700 lb setups.

This is all assuming you'll be using the cam arms which I expect you would be?

Thanks for all the great information. Yes, I'm using the cams. Here are a couple of pics of my parts.
IIRC, I do have some kind of spacer under the frame for the cam mount.
This is on the old trailer. Are these the bad ones?



Any issue with these?


Also, I take it the"forming bolts" are the ones used for securing the cam mount? I'll be sure to watch them closely and if they act up, I'll do something else.

Scott

ScottG wrote:


Thanks for the pics and info.
I found out I need to go to 1500# bars and I know my old ones are no where close to that.

Scott

On the lengths of the bars, I don't know if the 1500 lb bars are shorter or longer than the 800 & 1200 lb ones and if yes, by how much. One thing I discovered is that the distance Reese specifies from the coupler to the cam arm bracket of 19-3/8" was too short for the 800 lb bars and didn't leave any space to adjust the cam arm as you can see in this photo. I ended up having to drill new holes for the bracket's bolts farther away from the coupler. It didn't take very long before I found the 800 lb bars were too under-sized though and upgraded to 1200. Didn't have to drill new holes after all, pffft... It might be a good idea to clamp the cam arm bracket on temporarily to check that there is an appropriate amount of threads on either side of the nuts to allow aligning the bar ends with the cams before drilling into the A-frame.

If going to 1500 lb bars, there is a possibility that the Reese forming bolts will loosen for tongue weights around 1200 lbs and up. You can try Reese's rivnuts but not sure how well they work in the long run and for higher TW. I welded nuts on a plate and pushed the plate inside the A-frame and then bolted through the A-frame tubing to the nuts inside the A-frame tubing. This is a very secure and reliable method and not that hard to do. There's one or two other methods as well. I can post some photos of what I did if interested.

Do you already have the cam arms/brackets? If not, there was a poor production run a few years ago and the brackets are curved on the bottom and don't lay flat against the underside of the A-frame tubing. I got new ones from Reese at no cost. For 1500 lb bars and the higher TW, you want to make sure it all aligns together well. I also made some spacers with a curved edge for the outside of the A-frame because the A-frame tubing and bracket have a slightly different radius.

IIRC, there's also a heavy duty snap-up bracket and/or additional bolts you can use to bolt these brackets to the A-frame for the higher rated 1500/1700 lb setups.

This is all assuming you'll be using the cam arms which I expect you would be?

myredracer wrote:
We have 1200 lb Reese trunnion bars and used to have 800 lb ones and are side by side in the photo. Our 1200 lb ones are about 1/2" longer. Don't know if this is typical. Maybe the country they were made in makes a difference?

If you ask on the towing forum, if JBarca or Ron Gratz come along, I remember one of them being aware of the different length. Otherwise, they may know of another way of identification. Or phone Reese?

Thanks for the pics and info.
I found out I need to go to 1500# bars and I know my old ones are no where close to that.
The new TT has a dry tongue weight of 973# so I suspect it will be closer to 1200~1300# loaded and full of water.

Scott

ScottG wrote:
I'm going to a heavier TT and I'm not sure what bars I bought 13 years ago for our old trailer.
Does anyone know how to tell the difference between Reese trunnion bars? (they all seem to be 42" long)
Trying to figure out if they're 800# or 1200# bars and the label is no longer leggible.

I'm running a Reese 800 lb trunnion bar system and the spring bars measure just 31.75" end-to-end - surprised yours would be 42". :h Mine also taper thinner at the chain end of the bars. However, rather than rely on forum WAGs why not just call Reese Technical Support.

We have 1200 lb Reese trunnion bars and used to have 800 lb ones and are side by side in the photo. Our 1200 lb ones are about 1/2" longer. Don't know if this is typical. Maybe the country they were made in makes a difference?

If you ask on the towing forum, if JBarca or Ron Gratz come along, I remember one of them being aware of the different length. Otherwise, they may know of another way of identification. Or phone Reese?

Take them to the dealership with you. The guys in the shop should be able to tell you by sight.

I'm gonna subscribe to this because I have a pair of Reece bars in the garage and I'd like to know the application myself!