Thanks for all the feedback. Got to try driving with and without the Blue OX. Took a 4.5 hour trip to the Gulf. Had the WDH on and was very happy with the handling. Prior pulls had been short trips, so this was a good test. Spent a week down there, one morning was getting something out of the back of the truck and noticed the hitch was not there! Someone stole that darn thing! I had a locking pin on it, but that obviously did not do anything. I had brought my other hitch with me in case there was something I did not like about the WDH. The drive back how was not nearly as pleasurable, definitely experienced sway that I did not on the way down. Over $400 to get replacements, at least the shack will be 2.5".. Find it hard to believe that someone would steal a trailer hitch, but it is what it is...

 

While it is terrible to hear that it cost you $400 to conduct the with and without WDH unintentional testing... your report of the difference you felt is very valuable experience, which FTE is fortunate for you to have shared.

The key take away being that, irrespective of whether or not your truck and trailer combination needed a weight distribution hitch to redistribute the tongue weight, your towing experience was still improved by the use of the WDH hitch that came with your new to you trailer.

Some folks may not realize the "anti-trailer-sway" benefits of different designs of weight distribution systems, and I often read of Super Duty owners who ignore WDH systems altogether, believing that unlike an F-150, an F-250 or F-350 should be able to handle the trailer weight carrying alone no problem, without any "gimmicky" assistance from a WDH system.

I have an F-550, and I still use the original Reese Straight Line Dual Cam High Performance Active Sway Control WDH system on the tag trailers that I own, not because the F-550 needs help handling the weight, but simply because the WDH system that I uses reduces trailer sway induced by passing semi's, or unplanned evasive maneuvers on the highway.



My WDH system is now over 20 years old, and was Reese's initial design of dual cam trunnion square bar with detent system. Reese now offers an updated Version II of that system, which interestingly enough, now uses an all new adjustable trailer A frame bracket that hugs the top and bottom flanges of a trailer frame, similar to a set of frame hugging bracket that I privately designed (not shown in the photos, as they are still my "secret") and welded up for the original system, to avoid drilling into tubular trailer tongue frame rails.

In Reese's original version, one needed to bolt in snap up brackets and cam stays into the trailer tongue for each trailer towed via the WDH system, which is why I only use the WDH for trailers that I own, as opposed to rental trailers or equipment trailers. The new Reese design Version II should make it easier to adapt the trailer mounted part of the system to multiple trailers, without drilling, and remove without a trace. Reese's new design shown below:



I have three pairs of spring bars... 1,200 lbs, 1,500 lbs, and 1,700 lbs.... that I store in a tool cabinet in the truck, to match variable tongue weights that vary based on how the trailer is loaded (not based on how the manufacture built the trailer).



While the greater the spring bar tension, the more resistant the spring bar is to movement in any axis at any attachment point.... the anti-sway resistance of the spring bars does not entirely depend on the amount of preload in the spring bars. There is friction between the spring bars and the cam arms that hold the spring bars in line with the A frame trailer tongue that resists trailer sway.

Also, there is a detent in the spring bars that nests on the cam lobe in the "Straight line" position, so the there must be sufficient intentional turning action performed by the driver (as opposed to the wind) to force the spring bar detent to ride up over the cam lobe that it normally nestles with in the straight line position. If I turn intentionally enough, the spring detent overrides the cam lobe, and the spring bars frictionally slide on the cab lobe and cam keeper, adding to sway resistance.

In the photo below, one can see the wear on the original design cam in the lower right, which is due to friction between the spring bar and the cam lobe, as well as the cam plate.
(The silver cam on the left is a genuine Reese "Made In China" recasting of the original yellow zinc Made In USA cam casting on the right)




Another combination WDH and anti sway system by Equalizer, an independent towing products company who is not in the First Brands fold, relies even more on friction for anti sway resistance.

I am not at all familiar with how Blue Ox systems work, but it stands to reason that the more tension (or spring pressure) that a spring bar is under, the more friction is generated when that spring bar is slid across a surface, like the wear plates of an Equalizer, or the cam lobes of a Dual Cam system. Still, some spring bar tension is good enough to create some friction, which means that it isn't necessary to have optimally rated spring bars to receive some anti-sway benefit from some WDH systems.

So don't interpret my personal collection of spring bars of different ratings as being evident of a need to perfectly match spring bars to tongue weight to obtain some frictional resistance to sway. Obviously, optimization costs money, and I was willing to spend that money 20 odd years ago. Today, it would cost a lot more money to obtain the same flexibility of spring bar selection, so I probably would live with whatever bars that were inherited with the WDH system received as part of the used trailer purchase, unless the difference between the spring bar rating and the ACTUAL tongue weight exceeded 350 lbs. (eg, if actual tongue weight is 1,200 lbs, but the spring bars I inherited are only rated at 800 lbs... then I'd get new spring bars rated for 1,200 lbs. But if the actual tongue weight was 800 lbs and the spring bars I inherited were 1,200 lbs, I would use the 1,200 lbs spring bars, at less tension, while adjusting ball head angle if necessary.)

The bright side of having your hitch shank stolen is that you can now justify buying the 2.5" version. There can be quite a bit of difference in shank substance...










You will be happy to be shed of the adapter sleeve, and appreciate the robustness of a larger shank. One half of an inch doesn't seem like much as a fraction on paper, but when cast in steel, it is quite a bit more stout.