Not a good choice, then, based on what everyone's stated...will keep looking.

It may be difficult to find a 6 point 1 7/8 socket without it being an impact type socket. An Impact socket with its thick sidewall, I believe will not fit the Equalizer hitch. Here is their socket as an example.

1 7/8" Thin-walled socket – Equal-i-zer Hitch Store

Found one here.

TEKTON 3/4 in. Drive x 1-7/8 in. Deep 6-Point Socket-SHD33048 - The Home Depot

Jim

I actually have two sockets for checking these items. I have a thick walled six point which will fit very few hitches. But it works on my blue Ox just fine. Then I have a thin walled 12 point which fits all the others.

Jim

Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced clicker style torque wrench to handle the required torque on the ball? Not thinking Snap-On in this case.

Jim

Jim, this is the one I use. You just need to baby it so it doesn't get knocked around too much. It does come with a nice hard case which protects it. I checked it against a mechanic friend's wrench and they both "clicked" with about the same force. I know this is not a valid calibration method, but if it's repeatable on two wrenches, it means the are both off by the same amount, if they are out of calibration at all.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...&psc=1&fpw=alm

Jim

I'm going to use Rob's "old days" method (from post 4 of this thread): In the "old days" (before I could afford a torque wrench like that ) we did this the old-fashioned way. A 180 lb guy standing on one foot on the end of a 2 1/2 ft breaker bar, applies about 450 lb-ft of torque. Not likely as accurate as your torque wrench, but better than nothing if you don't have the right tool.

Howard,

Hang on to something tight and carefully use your weight in doing this. I've seen a few folks slip off a smooth chrome breaker bar over the years.

Jim

The US tried to convert to metric decades ago.




......... There was MASS confusion.

Well IMHO there are a lot of confused people in this country. Metric is rather easy if you try. I can't remember the last American built truck I owned that was not assembled with metric fasteners. Measuring is so much easier using a system based on the number 10. Converting fractions for adding or subtracting (much less multiplication and division) is so tedious. I'm over measuring something based on some dead king's nose or private parts.

Just sayin'

There is some interesting history to this. In the early 80’s, the US government required that the auto industry convert to metric or face significant fines/penalties. It was not an easy conversion and was very expensive. Imagine multi-spindle machining tooling geared to thread holes to non-metric thread pitch. Based on push-back from the general US population, the move to metric was rescinded. The government came back to the auto industry with “just kidding . . . you don’t have to change”. The auto industry responded with “we are now metric . . . get used to it”.

(I lived this in my working career)

Rob

Rob,

Those were the days. Remember when some nuts and bolts that were metric were marked blue? Cars and trucks were a mix of both systems. This is when my toolbox grew exponentially back then. Then in college I enjoyed the SI system so much better. I'm a convert.

Now slugs have an entirely different meaning.

Jim

Remember back in the '70's when the elder Trudeau put us on the metric / imperial fence. We now have one leg firmly planted on either side of the fence! You go into any grocery store and you will see both measurements. lbs. and kg. Crazy!

If the torque wrench isn't for torqueing down head bolts on an engine or other critical parts, I've seen them in pawn shops on a regular basis and my guess is they don't get too far off.
And the double-check could be running by the rv place to have them check with their torque wrench how the used one is working by having them check what you've torqued into place.
Chris

Torque is simply force x distance. There are many ways to check this from sophisticated calibration machines that you will find at a tool supplier like Snap-on, to hanging a known weight from the handle. Several versions of this on YouTube and elsewhere. (see picture) An important part of keeping a click style torque wrench (the most common these days) in calibration is to release the torque every time after you use it. A torque wrench left with the internal spring compressed will likely not be calibrated correctly.

Rob

Fastener torque accuracy is a very big deal in the missile building business. Early in my career, we'd send all torque wrenches to the calibration lab every six months. About 5% would would be out of specification. If they were off more than 10%, every missile that was built with that wrench might be subject to recall! It depended on the location of the fasteners being torqued and how critical the application was. It was very rare to encounter a torque wrench that was more than 10% out of tolerance. BTW, many of our torque wrenches weren't special "rocket ready" brands. They were just standard brand torque wrenches that you could find in any tool shop.

In later years, we installed torque checking devices in our manufacturing facilities and any time a wrench was used on a missile component, it had to be checked first. Our seriously out of torque incidents dropped to near zero after that.

So let's say that my 600 ft-lb wrench is actually off by 10% (rare). My 450 ft-lb trailer hitch ball might be 405-495 ft-lb. This would likely not be a critical issue that would subject the interface to failure. The hitch balls I'm worried about are those that are off by hundreds of foot pounds or even "finger tight".

Jim