Hitch / Coupling Trailer Issues

[Smelly]

Darrmum,

In your first photo, I notice an extra piece of flat at the front bolts - why?

ANd, why did you mount the hitch higher?

[FNQCairns]

Anchor chain bolted or welded is easy, bolted is flatout illegal.

The extra height above drawbar can be a minor problem on some low slung cars like our daily, on the patrol it is prefered.

cheers fnq

[HarryO]

Hey all...

When you looked at the trailers in the yards, did they
all have cable brakes?

If you look at the pic you posted where the bolts are
mounted upside down, you can see that the horizontal hole
drilled for the brake lever pivot is as low as allowable,
yet the coupling ram is still too low to operate as it was
designed to.

I would also suspect that the mounting bolts had half their
heads ground off in order to fit the coupling without fouling
the drawbar.

That alone would greatly increase the integrity of the mount..

NOT!

RE: chain.. FNQ is spot on, they MUST be welded.


Harry.

[darrmun]

needed the extra piece of flat to "shim it up " to allow for the swing away drawbar extension bracket

[darrmun]

oops my mistake that is the bracket the rear 1 is the shim

[newchum]

here are two hitches mounted on the draw bar. both still opperate the brake lever ok and no dodgy was done to make the bolts fit ,sorry about the quality it the result of a resize

[newchum]

number 2

[HarryO]

Good one, Newchum...

There will always be exceptions.

Presuming, again, that Smelly bought his kit new,
and it is the style that has a baseplate, it should
still be mounted as per Blackjacks method.

The lever in his kit will have an clearance inside the
saddle of 55 odd mm. (to suit 50mm wide drawbar)

Clearly, some of the old styles were wider
(and custom made in most cases), as the
drawbar width would have to be at least 75mm wide
minimum to allow the coupling to be drilled and bolted
directly to it, and the saddle would have to be 80mm
wide inside to allow it to pivot freely.

Harry

[Smelly]

Thnaks guys.

You have all been a huge help.

I will let you knwo what I decided upon when I instlal it - hopefully late next week ... with photos

[Feral]

My draw bar is 100RHS, I dont have any issues with hitch mounting