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This could have been a deadly

Geo-TH,In

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
Good thing I didn't have far to travel. I took a load of branches from yard to burn pit. I've never had this happen before. Nothing wrong with
cvphoto35482.jpg

Hitch. Some reason it didn't grab the ball before I put the pad lock on.

Scary to think what could have happened if I were driving at high speed on highway.

Has this happened to you?
 
Mine did that a few weeks ago. I was empty and had it locked on but it bounced off going across a bridge. Upon inspection there was an inner liner the ball sit in. Over the years it had worn thin and had two very small cracks in it. I had to lay on the ground and look up into the socket to see. A new coupler welded on corrected that problem.
 



That has ALMOST happened to me many times. It is not unusual for the moving part of the hitch to not be all the way back, and then it is not difficult if you aren't looking, for the moving part to be on top of the ball instead of under it.
 
If I may make a suggestion, cross the safety chains so if it does come off they will cradle the tongue and keep it from digging into the ground and possibly flipping the trailer. In your case it appears the tongue stayed up in the air but many times it goes to the ground. I'm not YT police but I was told that many years ago and it has saved me a lot of heartache once when mine came off. Just a suggestion and it's your trailer so you do as you please. Keith
 
I was pulling a portable corral which is just about balanced. The ball was on a receiver hitch and I slid it in and pinned it, however the ball was loose and the nut fell off going down the road. I stopped at a stop sign after 7 or 8 miles, looked in the rear view mirror and saw the trailer hitch in the air waiting for me to back up. It did not have safety chains but does now as I put them on for him!
 
We had to replace the trailer ball on one of our trucks due to the front side of the ball being worn so much it was no longer round. There was nothing wrong with the trailer coupler but the ball was almost flat on the front side of it and the coupler slid off.

Mark
 
Cut that thing off and weld on a Bulldog hitch. Until then, reach under that coupler with your fingers and make sure the catch is below the ball. I don't allow any of that type hitch in my business.
 
Had a hidden hitch on my F250. I rented a small excavator and their trailer. I rarely used the hitch, mostly pulling a hay wagon. Nearly home when it seemed to be pulling a little hard so I stopped to check. The square tube of the hitch had twisted on one side and tore the side plate on the other. The foot of the jack was dragging on the road and wore through the plate. If the hitch tore off the safety chains would not have helped.
 
Similar. I was hauling a finish mower on a 5x8 trailer for a buddy. His trailer and insisted I use his hitch. Doing 65 when the truck lurched. The 1 ton dodge was jinking and the trailer was wild. Got everything stopped on the shoulder. The ball was gone. Not in the hitch. Just gone. Safety chains held or that could have been so bad.
 
There is a second reason for crossing the safety chains. When they are crossed and you turn sharp, both chains still have about the same amount of slack since the end on the towing vehicle on one side is trying to tighten the chain while the trailer end is on the opposite side and is trying to loosen the chain.
 
When I lower the trailer onto the ball with the jack and latch it I then crank up the jack until I see the ball hitch and back of the truck start to come up along with the trailer. Then I lock it and finish the hook-up.
 
Not even close to your predicament, as a kid we were hauling to a roping. Dad had me hookup trailer. Had to take out pocket knife for some reason and left my pocket change on bumper and forgot it. Drove 40+ miles to roping and there on that bumper was all my change. It wasn?t all highway either.
 

Looks to me like your breakaway tether is tied (?!!) to the recv'r insert. Obviously it didn't pop the plug. Used to see this all the time when I was working. The purpose of a breakaway system is to activate the brakes on the trailer and keep it more or less straight behind you and not smashing into your tow vehicle when you brake after the chains come tight and you realize something is wrong. I mean no offense, but folks need to engage the noggin and think about this when they hitch. You CAN shorten a breakaway tether guys, really, you can!

As far as the hitch not locking on the ball, done that but not very often. Only takes a second to lift or crank the handle to see if things are actually connected.
 
Geo,

I think you posted a few days ago about having an issue with forgetting to secure the gates on your trailer, sounds like it is time in your life to have others check your work before someone gets hurt or killed.
 
Yes, the dimensions of ball and hitch seem to be critical, so they are basically wear items.
In our country, The Netherlands, the common ball hitch on cars and light trucks is 50 mm in diameter (approx. 2 inches). The ball may not be worn smaller than 49 mm measured in any direction; this is a (safety) critical item of our car inspections.
(Not saying that such accidents never happen here; on the contrary :-(. I totaled my car, doing 75 mph, by hitting a small trailer that had come loose on the highway on a DARK winter morning; thank God I suffered only minor injuries.)
 
[b:654c4848f0]We had to replace the trailer ball on one of our trucks due to the front side of the ball being worn so much[/b:654c4848f0]



Trailer balls are made of softer metal than the coupling so you can notice the wear and replace the ball.
When ever you have metal on metal contact there will be wear so what you experienced is normal.
 
With the tongue up in the air, your trailer is improperly loaded. That caused part of the problem! You should have tongue weight down on the ball.
 
Good morning! I have a sort of me-too statement. A few years ago, I was pulling a small cargo trailer with a garden tractor on it. My hitch ball was on a steel tubular shank that is slid into the receiver, and a steel pin is put through horizontally, then a hairpin clip keeps the large pin in place. Very common arrangement. My problem occurred when the hairpin clip apparently came out, and the main steel pin came out. The shank slid out of the receiver, and the trailer tongue was held only by the safety chains (crossed!). The chains did not break, but allowed the tongue with hitch/ball assembly to drag on the blacktop pavement while I was stopping. I had been going about 40 MPH, got off to side of road OK. So the crossed safety chains saved the day for me. I still have the ball on the insert shank. The nut that holds the ball shows where it slid along the blacktop, a good reminder! BTW, if that trailer had come entirely loose, it might have rolled into on-coming traffic, or who-knows-what. All for a lost or forgotten hairpin clip! As we all know, we should check even the simplest items before driving off. That's my story..

Dennis M. in W. Tenn.
 
If the underjaw is not installed properly this can happen.

Have a look underneath and confirm the tab on the back of it is properly engaged in the coupler.
 
Or you can feel if the tab is below the ball with your fingers.
Pretty obvious. If you can touch the back of the ball it's wrong.
 
The weight shifted when I was dumping trailer.
If there wasn't proper tongue weight I wouldn't have driven to burn pit
 
I know crossed chains is better. Can't cross chains on implement trailer because both chains are connected to same point .

I will cross them in the future. I did remember to chain both door open.
 
Dump type trailer?? Then yes one has to be double sure things are as they should be or that can happen pretty easy when the load slides back and out. A place I us to work for had a dump truck that due to air bag suspension if you did not let the air out of the bags it would stand up on its rear end which was not good or fun for the driver
 
There is a little latch inside those couplers that will get out of position and end up on top of the ball rather than beside/behind it. I have a round bale trailer with that style of coupler, and I have it rigged so I can raise the hitch ball up under it and hook it from the tractor seat. Sometimes that inside latch will get flipped up out of position and I'll have to reach up in there to flip it back down where it belongs.
cvphoto35555.jpg
 
Another thing.look at size of pin that holds reciever hitch in place,what 5/8"? And the ball hole is 1"? Weakest spot in the chain is weakest link
 
(quoted from post at 15:35:59 09/03/19) Another thing.look at size of pin that holds reciever hitch in place,what 5/8"? And the ball hole is 1"? Weakest spot in the chain is weakest link
Click to expand...

Rwb., what matters here in addition to the diameter is the shear force. If the draw bar is solid as it is supposed to be for a heavy trailer, the pin is under a lot less shear force than it is in a hollow tube. The world has known for many years that the draw bar pin is smaller than the ball shank.
 
(quoted from post at 14:16:43 09/03/19) Breakaway cable is tied to frame of
truck.
Click to expand...


Okay George, that's fine. I'm not trying to come down on you personally, but a lot of people don't rig the tether so the plug will pop out and activate the brakes in the event something like what you had happen occurs. It's just not something people think about.

Glad it worked out okay for you. I was involved in an accident investigation once where a boat trailer came unhitched and the tongue of the trailer went though an oncoming cars windshield and took a guy in the head. He lived, but still- safety chains and a functioning breakaway might have prevented all that blood and drama.
 
The very reason I don't like ball hitches. The old draw pin in a hole for me. Yes if the tongue is made right you can put the same or more weight and pullabilty on them. I have built several and always are well over built. The holes are at least for 1 inch pins or more depending on the size of the unit to be pulled.
 
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