New Member first Post

[flash25296]

I spent a lot of my youth in a travel trailer on family vacations and honestly I never thought I would own one. However a wife and kids have helped make it fun again.

I am towing a Bullet 211BHSWE with a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7L Trail Hawk. I am using an equal-i-zer hitch with 10k swing arms. We have been on 7 trips with this setup and all is good except that hitch is super noisy.

[chuckster57]

Welcome to the forum

Glad you found us, lots of good information and loads of great people here.

They do make pads for that WD that make it much quieter:

[sourdough]

Welcome to the forum and glad you found your way back to camping in an RV! As far as the hitch, be sure and lube the hitch head (swinging arms) as indicated in the manual, put grease on the ball and install the plastic covers on the L brackets. My noise went to almost nothing doing all that (after it was broken in).

[flash25296]

I agree, I did not make it out of the RV lot without putting in the sway bracket jackets on the L Bracket it was unbearable. Funny they consider that an accessory. I have been greasing all the locations you indicated. I have watched a ton of videos on it but I am still the village idiot pulling into campgrounds at night. I now stop and take off the spring arms before even pulling into the campgrounds to save the ears of my fellow campers.

I think the hitch head is off or something is not torqued correctly because one spring arm is noticeable tighter than the other. Oh well all things to learn and pass on.

[sourdough]

Make sure the head is adjusted correctly. If a dealer did it it's a 50/50 chance it's wrong. I will say it took a while for my head to break in; until it did I just made sure I arrived in the middle of the afternoon so I wouldn't have folks throwing eggs at me.... Check the torque on all the nuts as they may be off as well. I believe I ran the tension bolts at about 60-65 lb. ft., also tension the little set bolt in the back frequently.

[flash25296]

I will check those, for some reason I thought the bolts in the hitch head were torqued above my torque wrench rating. Now I need to go check. if its 60-65 then I have no reason not to loosen them and retorque them.

Thanks.

[sourdough]

Originally Posted by flash25296

I will check those, for some reason I thought the bolts in the hitch head were torqued above my torque wrench rating. Now I need to go check. if its 60-65 then I have no reason not to loosen them and retorque them.

Thanks.

You may be thinking of the the ball. I believe it is 300-350 lbs. I had to buy a new, long torque wrench for that then have the folks at my friend's auto shop "romp" on it hooked to a steel work bench bolted to a concrete floor. I don't remember the set bolt torque but it's 40 or below as I recall.

[spicercars]

Welcome from northern MN.

[markcee]

Originally Posted by flash25296

I will check those, for some reason I thought the bolts in the hitch head were torqued above my torque wrench rating. Now I need to go check. if its 60-65 then I have no reason not to loosen them and retorque them.

Thanks.

Mine were over-torqued a bit at the factory. And while one side is still slightly tougher to move, it's manageable since I re-torqued to 60 lbs - which Equal-i-Zer lists as the minimum for socket bolts.

Also, I'd first loosen the socket bolts completely and take the opportunity to slide the sockets out to their full range, clean off the surfaces and apply a thin layer of grease to the designated areas, top and bottom. May as well do this when they are easier to move.

[Gary R.]

Hello Flash, and welcome to you and your family to the forum!

Good to hear you're back in the camping mode!

As stated, there are many folks here that are quite knowledgeable and are happy to help!

Have fun and take care!