Pat's Easy Change Pat's Quick Hitch - Bushings Required?

[greg_g]

A friend told me that Pat's Cat 1 model has too much play when the hooks are lifted up to connect with the standard 7/8" Cat 1 pins; not a tight fit. Has anyone experianced this? Are bushings required?

No bushings required on either of mine. I have Cat 1 and a Cat 2, both included various size wedges and a pair of GR5 U-bolts so you can fine tune how the hooks are mated to the lift arms. The hooks will likely wobble without proper installation of these extra bits.

If there were no wedges or U-bolts, your friend might have bought counterfeits. And if all that actually has been done, I quite strongly suspect that the swivel balls on your friends tractors to be worn well outside of Cat 1 tolerance. Might be a good idea to measure the inside diameter of those swivel balls to see whether to blame the hooks - or the tractor.

That said, I've read there's an "economy version" of Pat's Easy Change being sold by Northern Tools. Complaints have been lodged that it's "too cheap looking". So perhaps this version doesn't come with the extra bits - but I don't know that to be a fact. Would be interesting to find out where your friend bought his.

//greg//