Reese hitch receiver tubing undersize

[Skyco]

Here is a caveat for everyone- last week I bought a 12" receiver tube made by Reese from Tractor Supply. Got it all fabbed up into a hitch for my fathers motorhome. THEN I discovered the tube is made incorrectly and is a hair too small to accept many 2" drawbars. The 5/8 hole for the pin is also too tight, I'm betting they've gone Chinese on sourcing these now.... An email to their customer service (HAH) has gone unanswered for a week now...

Moral of the story, check inside a receiver tube before welding it up in a project...the red faced "" doesn't begin to address my anger at Reese.

 

[dillo99]

That's pretty annoying. I would never have thought to check if my hitches fit.

 

[framer]

Had that happen once spent some time with my grinding wheel.Framer

 

[kebo]

Ouch! All that meticulous work to make it all fit together, then find out the pieces you DIDN'T make don't fit together. Hope you get it all straightened out so it fits.

 

[George2615]

Since you already fabbed it up I doubt they will take it back.
Is it possible the inside of the receiver was painted and the paint is too thick not letting the hitch slide in. If not you'll have to do like framer said and grind a little off the 4 sides of the hitches you want to put into that hitch receiver. Same for the 5/8 hole, have to ream it a little to make the pin fit better.

 

[JohnDeere4300]

Here is a caveat for everyone- last week I bought a 12" receiver tube made by Reese from Tractor Supply. Got it all fabbed up into a hitch for my fathers motorhome. THEN I discovered the tube is made incorrectly and is a hair too small to accept many 2" drawbars. The 5/8 hole for the pin is also too tight, I'm betting they've gone Chinese on sourcing these now.... An email to their customer service (HAH) has gone unanswered for a week now...

Moral of the story, check inside a receiver tube before welding it up in a project...the red faced "" doesn't begin to address my anger at Reese.

I buy a lot of Reese products, but i will start checking them from now on.

 

[Skyco]

No paint or flash inside the new receiver, just too dang small.
Fortunately the only thing my dad will use this receiver for is the towbar for the tow'd behind the motorhome. The existing receiver was too high for the specs of the towbar height for his new tow'd, a small lightweight Honda Fit.

The existing receiver had a nice 1/4" plate under it so I welded some 1/4" 2x2 angle along the side of the new receiver and drilled and bolted it to the underside of the existing plate with 4ea 1/2" grade 8 bolts. The receiver will support essentially no tongue weight, only pulling forces from the tow'd.

Being quite stunned when we went to plug the drawbar for the tow'd in and it wouldn't go we took the angle grinder to it, shaving off maybe a thousandth or two. We greased it and the inside of the receiver good, since there is now no paint on it. The drawbar is solid so no compromise in strength.
The hole for the 5/8" pin appears to be exactly 5/8", add paint and the pin is a no go, had to clean the paint off, typically the hole is a little over 5/8" to allow for tolerance between the hole in the receiver and the hole in the drawbar. I know when I've drilled them I usually go with a 21/32 drill bit.

One plus- he used to complain about the slop in the existing receiver letting the tow bar rattle, this one does not rattle, that's for sure

 

[J_J]

I was thinking that since you did some welding on the receiver, that the metal expanded a little. Did you perhaps try a fit before welding?

 

[Deerlope]

Here is a caveat for everyone- last week I bought a 12" receiver tube made by Reese from Tractor Supply. Got it all fabbed up into a hitch for my fathers motorhome. THEN I discovered the tube is made incorrectly and is a hair too small to accept many 2" drawbars. The 5/8 hole for the pin is also too tight, I'm betting they've gone Chinese on sourcing these now.... An email to their customer service (HAH) has gone unanswered for a week now...

Moral of the story, check inside a receiver tube before welding it up in a project...the red faced "" doesn't begin to address my anger at Reese.

I bought The same tube at TS about a year ago mine fit OK.

 

[chickenman]

check and make sure its not just the radius in the corners of the receiver

when i made my receiver i just used structural steel tubbing, worked fine

 

[Skyco]

Went by TSC today to look at the receiver stock like I bought. Yep- made in China. Tried a test fit and lo and behold some of the Reese drawbars will not go in the Reese receivers. In fact I got one stuck about an inch in and couldn't get it back apart
I took some crappy (really crappy!) cellphone pics below. Notice the radius of the internal corners in the tubing. Look closely at the 2nd pic upper right corner of the tubing The one I bought was nowhere near this bad, but still wouldn't accept some 2" drawbars.

 

[Deerlope]

I hope you jamed as many of them together as you could find. Like drop them on the floor. That should get your point across.

 

[Ford850]

My local TSC had a pile of Reese brand tubes like this marked down to half price a couple months ago. I wonder if they had this same issue and they were dumping them. I was looking for the small 1 1/4" size, but almost bought one of these since it looked like a great deal.

 

[Skyco]

I bought The same tube at TS about a year ago mine fit OK.

Yeah I've bought several over the years making stuff, never had a problem before.

 

[joes_427_vette]

Why would a person buy high priced Chineese steel products for a receiver hitch? Go to your local steel yard and find two 1/4" pieces of tube that slide together. The hole you drill will fit perfectly. With a total of 1/2" of steel your never going to experience a failure. Now you have stock to build a half dozen more !

 

[bobodu]

I did exactly that.However...I wish I had used a commercial hitch to get the proper placement of the hole through the receiver because they won't fit the tube. Can't get the pin through the hole.Fortunately,that was for the Jeep and I just use a 2' ball on that.Got MUCH smarter on the one I made for the dump truck...
HINT* If there is a possibility of using a tri-ball...drill both set of holes before mounting it on the truck. You can guess how I know this.....
Be sure to wrap the end of the tube with some 3/8 flat stock too.

 

[Skyco]

Why would a person buy high priced Chineese steel products for a receiver hitch? Go to your local steel yard and find two 1/4" pieces of tube that slide together. The hole you drill will fit perfectly. With a total of 1/2" of steel your never going to experience a failure. Now you have stock to build a half dozen more !

I've explained in previous threads that receiver stock isn't a common thing in steel yards. No steel yard locally has it in stock. The 2 in sq tube for the drawbars, yes they have that, and I have most of a 20' stick of that out in the shop. Proper receiver stock has a .238 wall/rounded corners and is flash removed on the inside.

Steel Flash Removed Square Tube 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 x .238 (Grade A500) | Buy Small Quantities Online | Allmetalsinc.com

 

[Scotty370]

Metal Supermarket has it, and it's called 'Trailer Structural'. Just don't know where you are! I've got one about two blocks away, and it's like a "Big boy, DIY, Candy store". ~Scotty

Metal Supermarkets

 

[Skyco]

They opened a store in Columbia, SC recently so I'll have to go check them out.

 

[Runner]

I had a similar problem with the cheapie HF receivers, but this was due to the seam on the inside of the tube. Took a big, long flat file and worked on it until the drawbar went in.