Grease for hitch balls

[5030]

Always forged balls never plated chrome and always whatever grease I have handy. Balls aren't particular about grease, neither are couplers.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Never thought about any of this.

So the three things that could happen if I don't use grease are noise, worn coupler, trailer unscrewed the ball.

Noise. I never noticed any particular noise. A loud squeek would definitely get my attention.

Wear. All the balls I use have a flat top so there is no concentrated wear point. The whole ball would have to wear through the coupler. That is not very likely. I have searched the internet anyway. There are some folks that see this as a possible problem but nobody that I could find actually had that problem. I have about 10k miles on my current dump trailer, no signs of wear on the inside of the coupler. Yes I got down on the ground and looked at it with a flashlight and ran my finger around to feel for wear.

Unscrew the ball. If a ball comes loose, I would look to improper tightening, or a cheap ball that deformed. There are more likely explanations than "my trailer unscrewed the ball". Anyway how could anyone know that it was the trailer unscrewing the ball. No way to show that. In decades of towing, including back and forth from VA to CA, all over the place for kids in school, and more or less constant with the dump trailer, I have never had a ball come loose. Of course I use top quality high rated balls and I get them plenty tight.

I was thinking maybe I should start using some grease anyway, it is easy enough to do. Why not? But then I thought, it would immediately get contaminated with road grit and be more like grinding compound than grease. So I would have to clean the coupler and the ball pretty often. For a doubtful benefit.

So I guess I will keep on doing nothing.

 

[ovrszd]

Pat I've never greased a bumper hitch ball. I use teflon spray on my GN ball to silence the squeal.

I can't do grease for the simple fact of getting it all over myself when unhitched.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Yep I have never used teflon spray but filed this suggestion away in my "maybe this will work" file. Squeaky truck door hinges come to mind.

 

[ovrszd]

Yep I have never used teflon spray but filed this suggestion away in my "maybe this will work" file. Squeaky truck door hinges come to mind.

I first used it to lube a road grader turntable. Doesn't collect dust. Downside is when it wears off it leaves the surfaces extremely smooth and likely to be noisy. But there's no mess.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Never used grease in almost 40 years. Ridiculous. Some city-slicker guys in my Dad's RV club talked him into trying it once, years ago. Yeah, that lasted about 2 trips and then he was done doing it too. Urban myth that's faded into legend. Only things that got grease were semi and rv 5th wheel plates, but that's due to the huge bearing surface of the 2 mating surfaces of the hitch. Now they have these "lube plates" you can put on, and don't even have to grease those anymore.

Don't grease pintle hitches either, and they carry more weight than any ball hitch.

You guys go ahead and keep on greasing them balls. We'll keep on laughing at you.

 

[rankrank1]

Are you saying: Grease on the ball hitch helps prevent the nut on the shank from working loose.
I wonder how?

Well think about it. When you tighten a regular ole bolt and nut you can you can either tighten the nut or tighten the bolt head. Either will achieve tightness assuming the other end does not spin. Conversely spinning either end can loosen the assembly assuming again the other end does not spin. A hitch ball with a threaded shank is nothing more than a glorified bolt minus the hex head on top but instead has a ball on top. A stout lockwasher will usually keep the nut pretty well in place as the lockwasher atypically chings the nut as well as chings the truck drawbar which effectively holding that nut pretty much in place almost as well as a wrench.

So even tightening my hitch ball with my 3/4" drive breaker bar that is over 3' feet long and then applying a cheater pipe to lengthen my leverage further say another 2" so lets say I am now at 5' total in my lever length of force tighening along with my 250 pound human frame pushing on said lever then my tightening force is significant- darned tight I can get that hitch ball indeed especially compared to most who use a Cresent adjustable wrench and call that good. That said, the tightness I can generate on the hitch ball totally pales and can be easily broken loose by say a 20' long traler which is effectively a 20' long lever to loosen (I had only 5' of lever to tighten) and the trailer has several thousand pounds of mass (compared to my 250 lbs of mass) which will easily loosen the said ball if the trailer coupler grips the ball instead of glidling on turns. Rust on either or both make metal surprisingly grippy on each other.


Again I have only ever had a hitch ball work loose on me once really, but I did have a 2nd instance that was borderline and I did not like it either. I have also had hitch balls change clock positions but they never got loose on me many times before I started using grease on them. I atypically align the writing on the ball or better yet the flats where one would put a wrench to hold a ball to a certain clock position on the drawbar so I can see at a glance if it has ever changed positions. I have never had one change clock positions or work loose since I began using grease and will continue the practice of always using grease.

Like another poster mentioned. No Chrome balls for me. I do not like them when the chrome starts peeling so avoid them from the start for this reason. I do like the forged ones with a smooth machined finish.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Or you could put them on properly, with an impact wrench, and they'll never loosen up.

Ever.

Your choice.

 

[radios1]

Yep I have never used teflon spray but filed this suggestion away in my "maybe this will work" file. Squeaky truck door hinges come to mind.

I use marine grease for hinges, it never dries up, and it's impervious to water/rain..

 

[downsizingnow48]

I use marine grease for hinges, it never dries up, and it's impervious to water/rain..

Also worth a try, thanks!