Mega-trouble unhitching
Over the past few years we have Great difficulty unhitching TT. Used to be I'd stand on truck back bumper and jump up and down and hitch would release and truck ball would drop out. I almost dread arr...
Forum Discussion
naturist wrote:parkersdad wrote:
Get in your truck and pull forward just enough to take the pressure off of the locking mechanism. I hope this helps.
X3
So that you understand fully, the latch on a ball type receiver is designed to clamp down tighter if there is ANY pressure at all on the back half of the clamshell that captures the ball. This is to make it impossible for the trailer tongue to hop off the ball no matter how hard you hit that bump.
The pressure that locks down the latching mechanism can be either the truck pushing back on the trailer, or the trailer tongue trying to lift upward off the ball.
So the trick is to park the trailer, set the chocks so it won't go anywhere, put the truck in drive and pull slightly on the trailer to ensure there's no backward pressure, then unlatch the hitch before you make ANY attempt to lift the tongue off the ball.
If you do that, every latch I've ever seen will release the ball with the pressure of just one finger. If you fail to do that, you have to jump up and down on the bumper while whaling away at the release lever with a hammer. It's your call, take 'em apart any way you want.
All good advice, but thank you "naturist", for your cogent explanation. I can "see" the process as you wrote it and I believe I have what I need to do the uncoupling right.
And no, I have not been chocking my TT wheels all this time. The outfit that sold me this trailer ten years ago went out of business. Maybe that tells us something. It's like this stuff is new to me today.
Like I said, thanks for all the helping info.
