BigBear

My spring bars only came up high like that after the swing hitch plate was bent 3/4 inch and the whole swing hitch was tilted 3 inches upward. Yes, you are right, you need to reduce the number of links on the chain as much as you can before backing up a steep abrupt grade. With my setup 4 links is the full set up and 3 links is only partly on and 2 links are slack. I probably bent the swing hitch when I was on the full link setting. However in my case you can't take the equalizer bars off completely because then the front on the trailer jams on the driveway and then I need to get a 3 ton floor jack to lift the front of the trailer off driveway. If I had reduced the WDH setting to 3 links before backing up, perhaps it would not have bent. The thing that exagerates it worse in my case with the way my street is sloping, is that I am backing up with the right side of my trailer on the high side of the driveway and that is the same side of the trailer that has the locking pin on the swing hitch and it is the force on the right side locking pin that bends the vertical plate on the swing hitch. My spring bars are 750 lb.
What others could learn from this is that if you were to say turn around and back up a steep driveway anywhere in the country this could perhaps happen.