To lube or not to lube the hitch ball

I just checked my hitch ball for spalling and wear. There is no sign of either after 4000 miles. The ball has always bee greased with lithium white spray on grease. The ball was purchased from Equalizer.

As you've been told, the dealer's advice was wrong!!!!! I went to a professional hitch dealer and installer and they said "grease it". We live on the wet side of Oregon and they use marine grease. Doesn't really matter the type of lube, just make sure you do lube.

Lowsuv wrote:
hvac
i have one of those air-ride hitches also.
this is for a conventional "bumper pull " type travel trailer .
i rarely see anyone else using one .
it gives me grins every time i see the trailer floating up and down in my mirror , also .
especially nice on the long trips .

Mine is a traditional set up as the Camplite does not require weight distribution or sway control. Shocker does make units that attach to the trailer and allow for the above travel trailer applications. I have well over 100k miles towing travel trailers, this is the single best thing I have ever purchased. It just makes sense and how I wish it was around in my early days.

I never use a lube on mine but, I have a high quality chrome ball and my hitch weight is quite light on my 20 foot TT. If I did use anything it would be wax paper but, I don't own any and always forget to buy some and then I would have to figure out a place to store it.

^^^^^ some more good points. So always wipe off the dirty grease and lube the top and bottom as that is where the "clamp" rides. I personally use the "super lube".
Might have to check more into those "air ride" hitches.

I use marine axle grease. Same stuff I use on the WD bars. I wipe the grease off at the end of a trip with paper towels, and when not in use I cover the ball with a can coozie.

I grease the top and bottom of the ball.

I do lube the reciver ball, but not with grease. A friend turned me onto a better solution with just as great results. He uses a toilet wax ring (no not a used one) to lube the hitch. I switched to that and its great, even if you get on your clothes it washes out easilly without stain.

And since I bought a ring and just mashed it into a big chunk wrapped in wax paper, its been 3 years and still lots left.

Thanks for the great advice! We bought a tube of white lithium grease and will use it on the ball and the weight equalizing bars. This makes a lot more sense to me than the advice from the dealer. By the way, the advice not to lube came from the technician who did our walk through. We are using those inexpensive black plastic ball covers (got them at an RV shop). I will put a roll of paper towels in the compartment where we keep the tools, etc. to wipe off the grease when we decouple.

I figure that the white lithium should be good and stains less. The temps don't get so high as to require bearing grease. Please correct me if this is a bad assumption. We are off on Thursday for our next trip.

Thanks for the help!

hvac
i have one of those air-ride hitches also.
this is for a conventional "bumper pull " type travel trailer .
i rarely see anyone else using one .
it gives me grins every time i see the trailer floating up and down in my mirror , also .
especially nice on the long trips .

I have Shocker air suspension hitch. It requires greasing the ball to allow the hitch to work more efficiently. The white grease in spray can works great.


The air suspension hitch is a huge improvement in ride quality. I see the trailer floating up and down in the mirror, real smooth. It has to take the wear and tear off of both trailer and tow vehicle.