Using Alko and greasy hitches, ACS swan neck codes

[Ukdave2002]

I can’t’ be the first person to have this challenge:

I tow multiple trailers that all require the tow ball to be greased, and now have a caravan with an Alko hitch that certainly doesn’t want any grease contamination the friction pads!, not a problem I thought, I’ll just carry a can of brake cleaner and some paper towels to clean the ball whenever I need to tow the caravan, however because of the way I store the trailers and van, I quite often need to move one or the other and a few weeks ago whilst moving stuff around the dropped the brake cleaner aerosol snapping the thin feed neck, so had to rely on simply wiping the grease off , but knowing that I will still have contaminated the Alko pads in some way.

There are a couple of fortunate things, firstly as I bough the van second hand I planned on replacing the Alko hitch pads anyway, second bit of luck, when I bought the car new, GLE 400d in Sept 2022.

I wanted the manufactures electric factory tow bar as I’d had it on a couple of previous E class Mercs, the dealer could get me the spec of the car I wanted relatively quickly, but without the tow package, if I wanted the tow package it was a 10 month wait! So I went for the car without the tow package and the dealer fitted at Tow Trust detachable tow bar. The down side of this apart from having to store the swan neck is that with the factory job there is a 3500kg towing capacity, reduced to 2700kg when a retro fit tow bar is fitted, now as I’m not going to tow anything over 2000kg this wasn’t an issue, why was this fortunate? Well now I could have 2 swan necks, one for Alko friction hitches and one for greasy. The tow bar that’s fitted uses the ACS system as used by Whitter , Tow Trust and numerous others.

The swan neck supplied had a 4 digit code 6717, so I searched eBay and there are loads of ACS swan necks, new and used, but generally described by the vehicle application rather than the swan neck, I looked at one swan neck that was described at fitting a GLE, but it had a different part number, although looked very similar, I then looked at some Tow Trust installation instructions and found 2 different specs for the swan neck for the same year of car? , there was no joy in searching for a 6717 , so I contact Tow Trust to see why there were different part numbers and if the parts were interchangeable, I spoke to a really helpful lady at Tow Trust who explained that firstly the number doesn’t relate to a specific car, and that there would be interchangeable swan necks with different part numbers that were more related to batch production than spec change, she gave me a list of numbers that would fit my tow bar. Armed with this info I did a broader search on eBay and found a little used swan neck that was advertised for a fairly obscure car, with a low asking price, so I paid £15 for the swan neck (most are advertised at around £90-£140) . When fitted to the car the height and distance from bumper are exactly the same.

So I now have a clean swan neck for the Alko and a greasy one for everything else.

Possibly a sledge hammer to crack a nut!

 

[ProfJohnL]

I have faced similar multiple towing issues from time to time, but for me it would not have been possible to get a spare tow ball just for Alko hitches as I used a variety of differnt tow vehicles and trailers/ caravans with many different tow bar arrangements.

The brake cleaner/ degreaser and paper towels, has always sufficed.

 

[Raywood]

Like the Prof I would suggest you buy a second tow ball which would prevent any problem with cleaning the greased one. People do lose them so I cannot imagine that spares will not be available.

 

[audiorob]

Think I would give both a thorough clean before use - looks like the lower one pictured still has oodles of original black paint on it except where the prior owners stabiliser pads abraded bits, and the top is quite rusty. In either case your stabiliser pads could be contaminated reducing effectiveness.
Can't follow your example as my swan neck is fixed so regular clean with brake cleaner and kitchen roll remains the order of the day!

 

[Ukdave2002]

Although I have towed for years, I was a Alko virgin!, when we picked the van up the (private) seller was shocked that I greased tow balls as he had only ever had Alco caravan hitches!
So I will use the new swan neck (the one with paint on) with the Alko hitch (will clean the paint off) and the other swan neck only has surface rust that wire wool will clean up, and then be treated to a traditional dollop of grease .

 

[Lutz]

I have a retractable towbar on my car, a caravan with a Winterhoff hitch and a flatbed trailer with a standard hitch. I got around the problem by doing without grease on the standard hitch. I‘ve had the trailer for 15 years now and the hitch seems not to have suffered as a result of not being greased.

 

[Dustydog]

Like the Prof I would suggest you buy a second tow ball which would prevent any problem with cleaning the greased one. People do lose them so I cannot imagine that spares will not be available.

Ray, is that correct? Prof said the opposite

 

[ProfJohnL]

Although I have towed for years, I was a Alko virgin!, when we picked the van up the (private) seller was shocked that I greased tow balls as he had only ever had Alco caravan hitches!
So I will use the new swan neck (the one with paint on) with the Alko hitch (will clean the paint off) and the other swan neck only has surface rust that wire wool will clean up, and then be treated to a traditional dollop of grease .

The advice is for Alko hitches, the towball should be bare metal free from paint oils and grease. You need to remove the paint on the ball before hitching, other wise the paint will contaminate the friction pads and reduce their effectiveness.

The balls are supplied painted principally to stop them rusting before reaching their customers.

It's important to remember that stabilisers should be considered to be like seat belts - under normal circumstances they are not required to add any assistance to allow the vehicle to be driven, but they of course need to be used to keep them ready should the worst case arise.

By the same token every trailer should be loaded and driven in a manner that ensures they remain under full driver control - without any stabilisers. You should never need to fit or use trailer stabilisers to make an outfit towable.