Tow hitch

[Alanjarvis]

Just got back from a weekend away and found I had great difficulty unhitching from the towball. Our Elldis van has a B&P WS2000 hitch stabaliser. Never had this problem before. Wound the jockey wheel up and down but it would not let go, car just went up and down. Tried moving the car forward and reversing it but it would not budge, pulled the hitch form side to side etc. After after 15 mins of this it did finally let go and the tow ball came out. Any ideas?
I have previously found that unless I keep the tow ball clean with emery paper the hitch creaks very loudly but since I been cleaning the tow ball this problem has gone away, Tow ball has a light coating of surface rust form the weekends rain which I didnt clean off before I hitched up.

Alan

 

[Damian]

The towball should be cleaned each time you are going to hitch up.
By leaving surface rust on the ball, you have now contaminated the pads and they will need cleaning with brake cleaner.
I too have te Winterhoff hitch and the symptoms you describe is that you had not fully disengaged the hitch coupling.
The handle needs to come right up and then some more so that it stays in the upright position. It should sit on a small flat at the top of its travel.