? on loose hitch pin

[Diamondpilot]

When I was fresh out of college about 20 years ago I got my first job at the local airport. We had a GM Astro Mini van with a 4.3L and it was all wheel drive. It had a 1.25" hitch on it. The guys there would use it to drive the pilots to lunch, hotels, ect. They always complained of busting shins. The stupid hitch was rusted in and they tried everything to get it out.

I thought I would be the smart new kid hero and took the van out back and put a piece of chain around the ball then to a telephone pole and tried to pull it out. Nearly pulled the pole down. Not really, it was a tired van and I dont even it remember it spinning the tires. Anyway the city street dept was doing some work at the airport and had a full size backhoe there so I went over and had them try with the BH Bucket. The lifted the rear of the van off the ground and jerked it all around. It was not coming out and nearly ripped the hitch of the frame. I then gave up and had our maintenance guy slice the whole thing off with a torch.

Chris

 

[clemsonfor]

wilnis, you have received some good information so far. From a welders point you could get a piece of copper and wedge it tight to the inside of the receiver and run a small bead around the inside of the hole and redrill to 5/8" you could also tack a heavy 9/16" washer to the outside if you wanted and drill through that, if you marked the location of the washer prior to welding the hole and then tacked it on it would also help in drilling the hole in the correct position. As for the receiver I find most of the hitches I have had lately have a very sloppy fit bar to receiver which would allow most of the starting out and stopping load to be on the pin, even with the tongue weight binding the bar into the hitch I feel this creates the wear on the hole. I have run small beads on the bar and ground them to fit the receiver at a tighter fit. Just some things to think about.

I thought the starting and stopping weight was always on the pin, i can hear mine shift in the slot all the time.