Hello
Soon after getting the trailer I ordered and installed a weight distribution hitch: the CURT 17051 Round Bar Weight Distribution Hitch - 800 lb from Amazon.
I tried to research a good system that will work for me in the long term but couldn't decide - all of them seem to have both good and unpleasant qualities. So I went with the cheap one.
It worked well enough, I comfortably pulled the Transcend 247BH for 3 months, probably near 20000km.
But gradually over the three months it looked as if the bars lost some of their spring. At the beginning I had a hard enough time putting them on on the 2nd link, and now I could probably put them on the 5th link, if that didn't make the chains shorter than the minimum the manual insists.
On the 4th link the system seems to still function in terms of helping with the bouncyness (that's why I got it in the first place) but the truck is far from level. I'd say the rear is sagging about 5cm compared to the front.
When I set it up late last year I'm sure the front and back sunk almost the same amount with the trailer on.
There are some scratches on the bottoms of the bars. There were 2-3 times I was not expecting the big reverse speed bump on the road.
And there are a couple of dents on the ball mount where the coupler ran into it - probably from turning too much, even though I thought I paid attention with every back-up.
Without the trailer weight I can wiggle the bars quite a bit inside their mount. I don't remember whether that was the same when the system was new. Could those holes have stretched out? It's really thick steel.
I started greasing it a couple of weeks into the trip when I realized that I won't be able to install or remove them if I let them continue to rust.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions about this situation - either what caused it or what I can do about it or what my next system should be.
Soon after getting the trailer I ordered and installed a weight distribution hitch: the CURT 17051 Round Bar Weight Distribution Hitch - 800 lb from Amazon.
I tried to research a good system that will work for me in the long term but couldn't decide - all of them seem to have both good and unpleasant qualities. So I went with the cheap one.
It worked well enough, I comfortably pulled the Transcend 247BH for 3 months, probably near 20000km.
But gradually over the three months it looked as if the bars lost some of their spring. At the beginning I had a hard enough time putting them on on the 2nd link, and now I could probably put them on the 5th link, if that didn't make the chains shorter than the minimum the manual insists.
On the 4th link the system seems to still function in terms of helping with the bouncyness (that's why I got it in the first place) but the truck is far from level. I'd say the rear is sagging about 5cm compared to the front.
When I set it up late last year I'm sure the front and back sunk almost the same amount with the trailer on.
There are some scratches on the bottoms of the bars. There were 2-3 times I was not expecting the big reverse speed bump on the road.
And there are a couple of dents on the ball mount where the coupler ran into it - probably from turning too much, even though I thought I paid attention with every back-up.
Without the trailer weight I can wiggle the bars quite a bit inside their mount. I don't remember whether that was the same when the system was new. Could those holes have stretched out? It's really thick steel.
I started greasing it a couple of weeks into the trip when I realized that I won't be able to install or remove them if I let them continue to rust.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions about this situation - either what caused it or what I can do about it or what my next system should be.
Comment