When was the last time that you not only cleaned your towball, but actually measured it for wear ? or had a good look at the tow hitch to check everything is ok ?
Caravan detachment
Caravan detachment
Towball / Tow hitch wear
- Thread starter Sproket
- Start date
Clean hitch before every journey, visualy checked then. Hitch and towbar checked when van serviced in April, engineer checked towbar when asked. Tow bar becoming part of the MOT soon.
We had a failure of the bolts which hold the Alko tow hitch to the A frame! We'd just come back from France, and after unhitching the van to go back into storage OH couldn't get the hitchlock back on. Then he noticed that the head of one of the bolts appeared to have moved outwards. When he tried to unscrew the bolt it was apparent that it had sheared in the middle. Fortunately both ends had stayed in place as we'd had the hitchlock on whilst towing. He then removed the hitch head and the other bolt was really worn but hadn't sheared. We had to buy new bolts (specially toughened ones - though I can't remember the spec and OH is asleep) and replace them, and now they're one of the things that OH checks carefully before and after each trip. Our servicing dealer said that they had never had this happen to any other caravan they'd serviced and was amazed to see the state of the bolts.
I think there's a post of mine somewhere on here mentioning the story, and there may even be a photograph of the bolts in question.
We've now put a new Alko 3004 hitch on the van and that seems to be fine after several long trips.
I think there's a post of mine somewhere on here mentioning the story, and there may even be a photograph of the bolts in question.
We've now put a new Alko 3004 hitch on the van and that seems to be fine after several long trips.
Towball wear is not an issue. If anything, and the previous replies bear this out, the problem is likely to be one of corrosion and subsequent failure of bolts.
I found that my tow ball did wear quite significantly. I had trouble with a tow ball and I decided to measure the ball. I trained as a toolmaker long ago.
That tow ball had been used over many years for an estimated 35 thousand towing miles, on my Defender 90. I found it to be worn out of spherical and well outside the allowed manufacturing tolerances.
This was pre adopting dry ball stabilisers, I used to grease lubricate it and towed both heavy trailers and caravans.
I no longer have the data I took however I recall that it had worn significantly where the trailer weight was taken and under the ball where the securing collar piece contacts. It was far from uniform wear, being the lost of a true sphere where stated.
On trying to purchase a replacement ball the shocking thing is that the first few balls sold in various outlets that I measured were barely on the lower tolerance, some even were plated. The original ball was plated and where worn was well through the plating.
I did finally get a ball, a Land Rover genuine item that was on the positive side of the diameter tolerance, this was not plated, a blued finish.
How important balls remaining within the diameter aspect of the manufacturing tolerance, is once in service I don’t know, I took the view that, as there is a standard then I wanted a ball that was within tolerance whilst in use.
That tow ball had been used over many years for an estimated 35 thousand towing miles, on my Defender 90. I found it to be worn out of spherical and well outside the allowed manufacturing tolerances.
This was pre adopting dry ball stabilisers, I used to grease lubricate it and towed both heavy trailers and caravans.
I no longer have the data I took however I recall that it had worn significantly where the trailer weight was taken and under the ball where the securing collar piece contacts. It was far from uniform wear, being the lost of a true sphere where stated.
On trying to purchase a replacement ball the shocking thing is that the first few balls sold in various outlets that I measured were barely on the lower tolerance, some even were plated. The original ball was plated and where worn was well through the plating.
I did finally get a ball, a Land Rover genuine item that was on the positive side of the diameter tolerance, this was not plated, a blued finish.
How important balls remaining within the diameter aspect of the manufacturing tolerance, is once in service I don’t know, I took the view that, as there is a standard then I wanted a ball that was within tolerance whilst in use.
Isn't the Renault Tafic of the "white van" category? Maybe the caravan wasn't hitched properly in their haste to leave the area.
Your findings astonish me, JTQ. Considering towballs have a relatively generous tolerance of -0.39mm on the nominal size of 50mm, it looks as though you must have had a particularly aggresive hitch.
I can't say that I've ever towed 35000 miles with the same car, but probably managed half of that without any wear that was noticeable to the naked eye.
I can't say that I've ever towed 35000 miles with the same car, but probably managed half of that without any wear that was noticeable to the naked eye.
Just curious but whilst on this subject, has anyone out there had to replace the front/rear (as opposed to the side) friction pads in an AKS 3004 hitch? Reading my Alko booklet, checking their efficiency and replacing them if necessary seems fairly straightforward.
Mike
Mike
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