Lol, around here we get all four seasons, sometimes in the same week!

 

Let me know. I may have Crista convinced on the Canada trip, I just have to talk to the partners and convince them to pay for it. The only other convincing needed is for me to convince myself I will be OK for that long without any firearms. Damn Canada and their gun laws.

We just got cleared to transact in the EU with our products so I am hoping for a trip over there in the near future.

 

We have reserved a spot at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, MD for a week. I grew up around DC but my kids have only been there twice, I want to show them around.

 

I did some more work on the HA>3P stinger this week and I don't like were it's going at the moment. The overall length is just too long for my taste. It's around 24" from hitch pin hole to ball. I have a plan though.
Here's a picture of what I am proposing. After looking at this now I am not sure why ProPride didn't build the hitch this way to begin with? I really want the "virtual projection point" to be as close to the axle center line as possible, much shorter stinger will help that.
vs the original version

 

You could take the ferry ???

 

I looked into taking the truck and camper over that way a few years ago. You need a couple of months round trip and a small fortune.

 

Well I thought that your 24" ball center to hitch pin hole was pretty long............until I measured mine just now!
I am at 23.5" from the center of the ball to the hitch pin hole with a factory HA stinger with a 4" rise/drop. I was surprised, I would have guessed about 18" or so, shows what I know!

Looking at your unaltered picture it looks like your pin hole is farther away from the wedges than mine, are you actually longer than 24"? From my first picture it looks like mine is about 11.5" from the end of the wedges (my tape measure's 12" mark) to the pin hole center, what is your distance there?

 

If you were to pull into a driveway, parking lot, etc. that was a steep hill...... where does your hitch pivot up and down? Or would that be taken up by the suspension?

 

The HA used four sets of trailer axle spindles and bearing sets to allow for horizontal rotation between the upper hitch head (orange) and the lower hitch head (black) so only the smallest amount of verticals flex happens there. The upper head is stabilized by two strut rods that go back to frame brackets, they mount at both ends with pins, so a tiny bit. Of movement there. The trailer coupler is locked onto the ball in the upper head and it doesn't swivel like a normal hitch but it has another tiny bit of flex up/down, but not much. There is no flex at all in the stinger to lower hitch head connection and it only has the slight jiggle like most hitches where the stinger goes into the truck's receiver. So all totaled there is a little bit of up/down flex for terrain changes but nothing like a typical ball to coupler connection.........but it works fine and I've never had any issues with it in those situations.

 

Dropped mine off at the dealer for a few weeks . I left the stinger with the service department. We looked around the lot and came back and the service manager was trying to hook up the tractor to my camper. I had to guide him, he grumbled this hitch was too hard and takes too long, I told him it was easy to hook up once you get use to it. I told him I offered to take it off, he said next time he may take me up on it.

 

I am not really sure on the wings to pin hole measurement because as soon as I got it together the overwhelming feeling of failure came over me and I was bummed out. Here's a pic that might show the reference dimensions.
I also think the 24" might be from the second pin hole I will add.

 

I obviously don't have mine in use yet but studying the patent drawings I think the front to rear connection in the vertical plane is still fully articulated, only limited by the weight bars. In fact if you left the weight bars loose or off the hitch still works ( in theory). The strut bars are pinned on the same center line as the ball at the hitch head, there isn't anything to keep the trailer from moving in any direction on the ball except for rotational movement. That is the purpose of the parallel projection hitch, the rotational movement is transferred through the converging links to the lower hitch.

 

Duh......yep, you are correct, the strut bars do attach inline with the ball and that does allow for up/down and twisting on the ball, just no rotation like you said. In my defense, I never watched it work, I'm always behind the wheel, and I'm a dope! .

 

​​​​​​We camp there for we are dopes LOL. As soon as you think you have it all figured out you back into something, or leave the TV antenna up.

These hitches take awhile to fully understand all the geometry I am still trying to figure out how to attach it to the truck.

 

Picking my camper up from the dealer on Saturday, they only had it for 2 weeks. The Ex hasn't been driven since we took it over there so it will have to come alive on a cold morning.


It will be nice to have the camper back in the driveway where it belongs.