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So I am continuing to learn and investigate some issues I am having with my ProPride setup. The latest call I made to Sean was regarding issues when unhitching. My stinger is getting stuck in the hitch box such that I almost drag my trailer with chocks in front of the wheels to unhitch even on level ground. Sean recommended that I use my angle grinder to shave down the last 1" of the stinger that goes in the furthest point back in the hitch box to elevate some of the binding. I also found that my u-bolt supports on the jacks were both ben down and one was almost straight. I am thinking this was caused by the severe angle that I achieve when pulling my trailer in and out of the driveway with my front hitch. As always Sean is awesome on his customer service and he is going to send me two new upper jacks with new WD support bars on them and then weld the u-bolt shut so that it cannot bend down like it has done at this point.
My question for ProPride users is that as I invesitaged the unhitching topic further tonight it seems that my hitch box does not have a lot of free movement to achieve different angles when no load is applied, and it seems most of this limited movement is due to the yoke tail being clamped tight between the down tubes of the yoke tail support. I see in the installation manual that Sean says there should be no side to side movement of the tail yoke, but I am wondering if there should be allowable up and down movement, which would allow my hitch box to achieve different angles much easier. Can anyone with a PP take a quick video of what type of up tilting angles you can achieve when your hitch is just sitting free on the trailer and not attached to the tow vehicle? I will try to post a video of mine tomorrow to shows the limited movement I am referring to, which I think is the main cause of my unhitching issues.
Kevin, I too have had the occasional unhitching problem, often times I have the hitch head at too much of an angle and the stinger has trouble releasing. If I forget to deflate my air bags it is worse, I think that the main problem is the weight coming off of the truck allows for the rear suspension to push up on the hitch. I now try not to lower the head down too far to alleviate the bind. Does this make any sense?
Kevin, I too have had the occasional unhitching problem, often times I have the hitch head at too much of an angle and the stinger has trouble releasing. If I forget to deflate my air bags it is worse, I think that the main problem is the weight coming off of the truck allows for the rear suspension to push up on the hitch. I now try not to lower the head down too far to alleviate the bind. Does this make any sense?
Yes, to some extent it makes sense. What I have been doing is watching the hitch and looking for that point just when the tongue of the trailer moves independent of the hitch box, then I try to pull out, but often times this still leaves me in a bind and I attribute it to the fact that my stinger is angled down and the hitch box can only go to parallel with the trailer frame. I have the W/D jack all the way down so I can't use them to help angle the hitch box to match. Sean confirmed that I have the worst case which is a trailer frame with the inverted ball, which means my hitch box sits lower than other trailers, so even with my jack links on the highest hole location I still can't get a lot of angle from the W/D jacks.
Are you suggesting that maybe I should watch for the free motion between trailer and hitch box, but then actually lower it back down to put some pressure back on the hitch box instead of leaving it free?
Yes, to some extent it makes sense. What I have been doing is watching the hitch and looking for that point just when the tongue of the trailer moves independent of the hitch box, then I try to pull out, but often times this still leaves me in a bind and I attribute it to the fact that my stinger is angled down and the hitch box can only go to parallel with the trailer frame. I have the W/D jack all the way down so I can't use them to help angle the hitch box to match. Sean confirmed that I have the worst case which is a trailer frame with the inverted ball, which means my hitch box sits lower than other trailers, so even with my jack links on the highest hole location I still can't get a lot of angle from the W/D jacks.
Are you suggesting that maybe I should watch for the free motion between trailer and hitch box, but then actually lower it back down to put some pressure back on the hitch box instead of leaving it free?
Sort of. The weight being removed from the truck binds the stinger. I would suggest putting more weight on the trailer foot when releasing so when the trucks suspension uncompresses the hitch and stinger are level. Continue to watch the hitch head angle too. Remember that the stinger angle being down helps your WD, all you are trying to do is to find a happy medium where the pressure between the two is at the minimum point.
Well I took a longer look at it today and decided to take the hitch box cover off and see if that gave me more angular rotation and it certainly did, so I took a few pieces lying around the garage and used them to raise the cover by about 1 inch, now I have great clearance to the yoke so that the hitch box cover does not collide when trying to get a larger upward angle (front of hitchbox up, rear of hitchbox down) for hitching/unhitching.
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