Tow balls and trailer attachments

[dince]

Can anyone suggest a source for light weight trailer attachments to suit 50mm tow balls, or preferably smaller tow balls, for lawn tractor trailers, please?

 

[Bird]

You might have to be more specific. Of course in the USA, our trailer hitch balls are generally in inches; i.e., 1 7/8", 2", and 2 5/16". Lawn tractors generally are only equipped with a hole in the hitch to use a pin instead of a ball. In fact, with 1 7/8" being our smallest hitch ball, I don't think one is made with a shank small enough for the hole in the hitch. So I reamed the hole and have a 1 7/8" ball on my Toro.

 

[dince]

Dear Bird, Many thanks for your reply and apologies for my belated reply - I have been well and truly off-line! Yes, we have same size balls in australia, and fitting one (1 7/8") to Toro etc will be fine. What I am looking for is the coupling to go on the trailer drawbar, to go onto the ball. I can get cast ones - pretty heavy. I am looking for light weight, pressed steel, ones like are on some wood splitters (Yardman) but don't want to pay their "spare parts" prices! I probably need 10!

 

[Wnc3]

Redneck Trailer Supplies - 20 National Branch Locations - Home
1 7/8" hitch like we use one a jet ski or small boat trailer.

 

[Bird]

I don't know about the prices, but they wouldn't be hard to find here, but I have no idea where you'd look in your part of the world.

 

[QRTRHRS]

You might have to be more specific. Of course in the USA, our trailer hitch balls are generally in inches; i.e., 1 7/8", 2", and 2 5/16". Lawn tractors generally are only equipped with a hole in the hitch to use a pin instead of a ball. In fact, with 1 7/8" being our smallest hitch ball, I don't think one is made with a shank small enough for the hole in the hitch. So I reamed the hole and have a 1 7/8" ball on my Toro.

I bought an 1 7/8 at TSC with a pretty small shank. Have to check, it was either 3/4 or maybe 5/8. It would have fit my zero turn hitch hole but the ball was then too close to slip my trailer tongue over. I had to buy an ATV adaptor that used a more standard size shank. Of course I have several of those laying around.

 

[flyerdan]

It looks like the cheapest one is around $23, due to your standards for couplers which must differ significantly from ours. I'm sure you'd like to find something like this, which is around $10 cheaper, and about twice as much from when I last priced them.

 

[QRTRHRS]

View attachment 274349View attachment 274350View attachment 274351View attachment 274352View attachment 274353View attachment 274354View attachment 274355View attachment 274356What with some rain finally, the grass is taking off so I got the mowers out and took some shots I thought might be of interest to this thread. I pull a 66" Swisher with my 60" Woods giving maybe 10 foot of capacity.

Doing a lot of hooking/unhooking, I needed a better way to hook the tow behind than the stock pin. On rough terrain, the mower was hard to "bull" around and pin the tongue. I bought this adaptor from Northern then needed to add a ball. I found a ball at TSC with a 5/8" shank to fit the mower hitch but then the adaptor would not go over the ball. Then I added the "Z" shaped adaptor. After I did that I realized I might have just turned over the hitch/axle mount on the Woods. O'well.

I also have photos of the hitch brace I fabbed up for the Swisher. To me, it felt to "springy" so I fooled around with differnet bracing schemes until I settled on the perforated box tubing which I can adjust to any width. The brackets pin to existing holes for quick removel if needed.

Solo, I have to watch my tail swing with the hitch extention a little but it allows me to jack the tow behind pretty hard without bending the hitch.

 

[Hostaman]

Harbor Freight...just installed one on my John Deere 18 cruft trailer.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=Ball+coupler

 

[George2615]

A local tractor store should have these or can order them.