Cleaned and ready for the 4th, I feel comfortable with my repair and weight distribution. Thank you everyone for answering my questions.

 

I don't use a Dual Cam hitch ( Hensley Arrow here) but I would check with Reese before lubing up the friction points too much, friction on those cams is the main sway control function on those hitches.
With a big heavy trailer like yours you may also want to think about doing the 2 Wheel Drive Low Range mod for backing up into camp sites or up any type of incline, it makes life much easier on the trans and can help prevent the front trans seal from overheating and puking fluid. I currently have mis-matched gear ratios front/rear so I just leave my 4X4 vacuum switch unplugged but once I get around to finishing my front axle swap I plan to do this mod. 2004 F250 Auxiliary Switch Install This writeup covers several electrical mods but the 2WD Low is in there.

 

BGE, looks like good #'s, and in last pic, looks like trailer is pretty level, and same with EX.

As to backing up, I've never had to remove bars in situations encountered in 9 years of using a DC HP. As to lubing, I am assuming that you are asking due to noise!! If the hitch components are fairly new or have low mileage, they will snap, crackle, and pop!! And sometimes a bang. Vaseline will help, but mixed with the powder coat paint on the bars, will be a mess. My newest 1200# round bar and new DC made terrible noises until the bars and cam wore into each other!! Now after aboot 5 or 6 trips, there is still some noise, mostly groaning and creaking. Much smoother, and I expect it to get better since the last system (1000#) was almost quiet!! There will always be some noise, dirt and dust can aggravate that, and rain may also. A bit of Vaseline doesn't hurt at all, no change in feel of hitch control.

And, as to the friction sway mounting pad area, I've successfully cut them off on three hitch heads with no problem!!! Sawzall, grinder, and good semi-gloss paint and no more chance of interference with frame and hitch. But, always have to watch the truck corner and trailer!!

Safe travels!!!!


Gerry

 

So a bit irritated at this point, went to take the trailer back to storage for the week, went the longer way to run it in the freeway again. It started popping and creaking again when going around corners, nothing sharp, no backing, just regular side streets. So I decided to bring it back home and double check everything. This is what I found.







The drivers side is the only one that is tweaked. I'm starting to wonder if my hitch has some type of issue and is not allowing a full swing when under tension. I've checked the trunnion bars and they don't appear to be bent. Any ideas?

 

Any marks on the bars (dents or missing paint) or paint / marks on the frame, ball (nut, threads), or the dual cam arm where the bar may have hit?

How many links are you running under tension?

Did you do the parking lot turning test to ensure nothing is hitting anywhere?


Do you have any closer photos of the hitch all set up that you can add?

If you do, maybe someone will see a place that you can inspect more closely.


Here's mine after some dialing in. I don't recall if this was the final setup - but you can see the relationship of the bars to the TT frame. My A-Frame seems to be set up similar to yours, so it's a good example.





When I look at this photo of yours, it seems like the clearance near the ball is a little tight, but that could just be the camera angle. At the very least that's an area to inspect.







Here's a zoom of the above photo:




In order to get everything working, I needed a recent hitch head (one on the left with the raised ball mount):



And a different raised ball. You can see the raised ball in the 1st photo. The ball shank is tall vs the one in the photo above.



I had a similar bend in the teardrop shaped part:


In my case it was from the DC coming loose and the snap-up bar bending and rotating some. I'm not sure what happened first.

Notice the bend at the pinch bolt and the bent pin - due to a big load with bars trying to come out:




Snap up pinch bolt dug into frame:



Marks on the outer face of the frame showing that the snap up was not flush to the frame and had some motion:







Slide marks that show the DC rotated:



Hopefully this give you some more ideas on spots to inspect.

 

After thinking about some, I suggest starting here. See if the bar may have bound up on the cam arm. That would produce a pretty big lever action:





Here's another photo from this thread

RV.Net Open Roads Forum: Travel Trailers: Reese HP Dual Cam Problems


on rv.net where jbarca mocked up the scenario with a jack:

 

I can't find the link to the thread at RV.net where I copied this info from (unusual because always put the thread link in the Word doc when I copy info from a forum ), but here is the info I saved to a Word doc.

Stewart

 

Aha, I was looking in the wrong forum, here's the link for the above Word doc I attached: RV.Net Open Roads Forum: Towing: Travel Trailer Hitch Set-up Procedure

Stewart

 

Installed a 30 AMP RV circuit in the house yesterday, meter tested it and everything is good, just need to get a longer 30 Amp cord to reach to the camper and then I have A/C when working inside of it.

 

Okay so hopefully I will lay all this out correctly.

(1) I am running five links, originally from the dealer it was set at three. I have since adjusted it and the weights, new cams, and rivet nuts are after adjustment.

(2) I was not able to do the parking lot test before the bar bent.

(3) I am thinking the new bent cam is coming from a loose cam bracket. I torqued them to 75 ft lbs, but I think that did not crush the rivet nut sufficiently because the bracket had some play in it after I took the trunnion bar off.

(4) I have since hooked up to the trailer again (with the bent cam) to try and get pictures. There is a lot, sorry if I clog up the thread.



Trunnion bars, nothing out of the ordinary from what I can tell.





View of hitch with TV and TT straightline.





View of cam on right hand turn.





Drivers side cam on right hand turn.





Passanger side cam on right hand turn.





Position hitch was in when taking right hand turn pictures, no touching.





Position of hitch in right hand turn pictures. Yes, its obviously touched before, but not in this picture.





Position of truck and trailer during right hand turn pictures.
]]





Angle of trunion on left hand turn.





Angle of hitch on left hand turn.





Drivers cam on left hand turn.





Passanger cam on left hand turn.





Position of hitch on left hand turn.





Position of truck and trailer during left hand turn pictures.

 

Sorry to hear of your troubles with the DC. A couple of suggestions, along the line of what has already been brought up:

I would replace the hitch ball with a 1" riser ball or even a 2" riser. Then the head would need to be dropped probably 1 set of holes. Second, try tipping the head down one or more notches to angle the bars down more. You will need to readjust the cams of course and probably another link to hang the cams.

How old is the hitch?? The newer DC kits with the black arms and silver cams have narrower arms and slightly more offset to the cams. Also the tabs where the arms bolt on are also offset slightly more to the outside than the older gold ones. AND, the oldest gold cams are narrower where the bars slide. I bought a new kit to replace the almost 10 yr old gold set-up due to a new set of 1200# bars binding in the cams.

With the trunnion, the biggest fight is with getting the necessary clearance between the bars and the cam arms. I run a round bar, much more forgiving in the clearance area!!!

Not that it is causing the problem you are having, but I would also cut that tab for the friction control off. Isn't hard to do, I just use a sawzall with a good metal blade and a grinder to finish off. No loss of strength in the head, and much less possibility of frame damage if too sharp of a turn.

 

Hey guys and gals, I need help finding a decent generator for the TT. The kids talked me into going to a Fair in NE Ohio and the electric sites are all taken.

I tried using the generator I have tonight and it wouldn't run the AC and frig at the same time. It is a Centurion by generac 3250 watts on 20 amp breakers.

Any pointers would be great.

 

The original cams, silver in color, were installed in October of last year. The latest, gold in color, were installed on Saturday June 27th and are already bent up that bad. I thought the newer HP units were suppose to be better. They sure seem more substantial.

 

Just ordered a 2 5/16" raw ball with 2" of rise. I need to get this taken care of, I'm starting to not feel okay with towing this trailer behind my family.

 

Can you run the fridge on propane? Honda makes some nice generators. Not cheap though.