If you have a travel trailer one thing that easily gets neglected is the hitch system. Today I want to show you some basic things that you can do to help minimize wear and tear on your ball and trailer hitch. The main thing you want to do is keep the ball and the hitch of the trailer clean of debris especially grit and sand. As this can act like sandpaper and cause premature wear on the components.
What I do is put a small layer of grease on the ball itself and some up inside the receiver on the trailer. There are several grease options out there and some are better than others the main thing to make sure is before you hook up to remove any grit or grime from the ball and reapply a thin layer of grease if needed. Another thing you’ll want to do from time to time is oil your tongue Jack assembly. In this case, it’s a hand-crank Jack and has a whole way you apply a small amount of oil however many power jacks also have points to be oiled to help aid in lubrication and prevent premature failure of the worm gears inside. Also, I advise that you remove the hitch from your tow vehicle when not in use. As extended times left in the receiver can cause them to rust and become next to impossible to get apart. The hitch shaft itself is another area I would apply a light amount of grease. Again making sure that no grit or sand is stuck to the grease when you put them together as this is just as bad as putting a piece of sandpaper in there. It just gonna cause early where, of the components. Once again I would clean these thoroughly and reapply grease prior to mounting the hitch into the hitch receiver.
If you follow these few simple steps you can help eliminate early failure and possible problems on the road. So take the time and do some general hitch maintenance. Now I know everybody probably has a can of WD-40 lying around while this is a great lubricant to breaks free rusty and stuck components is a very poor product for lubricating the ball and hitch of your travel trailer long-term. Only use this type of product to free up rusty components and then apply the proper lubricant such as Greece and oil.
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