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Old 06-02-2022, 07:38 AM   #11
Wavery
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Originally Posted by markozip View Post
We tow with a 2021 Chev Colorado diesel and pull a 2922KS. I bought an Anderson WDH because of all the TM Facebook club endorsements. There is some squat when coupled without the hitch. We travel with empty water tanks. Once in a while we get some sway that I cannot explain [no cross winds, semi's passing, etc]. Sometimes I think it may be grooves/ruts in the highway pulling/pushing the trailer. [South Carolina is the pothole state.] I can feel a semi once in a while when it passes, no control issues, but you can feel it. I have never pulled over and reset the tension after an event, yet.
I would encourage you to take your trailer to a tire store. It sounds like you could have a tire that may be starting to separate.
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Old 06-02-2022, 01:24 PM   #12
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Thanks will look. It is 18 months old with maybe 5000 miles on it but will look.
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Old 06-02-2022, 03:17 PM   #13
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You may also have the tension cranked too tight on the Andersen, which effectively pulls tongue weight off the tongue, which means the ball shank isn’t pressing as hard into the friction cone, which means your anti-sway isn’t working as designed. That hitch is designed so the more weight there is on the ball, the stiffer the anti-sway gets.
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Old 06-02-2022, 04:24 PM   #14
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That is likely, since with the Anderson I really do know how much to tighten up those red shock absorbers. I measure the hitch before and after coupling to get the bumper at same elevation. But you can over torque. A torque setting would be useful. Next time I will back off as that is easy to do. Thanks.
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Old 06-02-2022, 05:12 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by WysteriaMistShelties View Post
We have always used ... ball extenders so we can open up the tail gate.
These things make me nervous. There is a great deal of expert-sounding but non-specific discussion about hitch extenders and ballmount extenders. Most of it seems to say that hitch extenders reduce the capacity of your hitch by 50% while ball mount extenders do not. See the discussion here.

https://www.etrailer.com/question-93372.html

I wanted the same thing you did - the ability to open the tailgate of the truck while hitched up. So I bought one, widely available as part number 80232 under several manufacturer's names. It moves the hitch ball back 16 inches, which was enough. But I quickly found that the safety chains/cables would no longer reach the tow vehicle, and the Bargman power cable was so short that I couldn't make a tight turn without pulling it out. Those things, plus my mental picture of the hitch disintegrating as I drove, led me to discard the thing. I'll give it away at one of the rallies.

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Old 06-02-2022, 05:48 PM   #16
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Thanks will look. It is 18 months old with maybe 5000 miles on it but will look.
There are lots of reasons that trailer tires can fail prematurely. Just one time of towing under pressure or over weight and the tread can start separating from the tire casing. It takes a professional to check it out.
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Old 06-02-2022, 06:53 PM   #17
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Originally Posted by markozip View Post
That is likely, since with the Anderson I really do know how much to tighten up those red shock absorbers. I measure the hitch before and after coupling to get the bumper at same elevation. But you can over torque. A torque setting would be useful. Next time I will back off as that is easy to do. Thanks.
Once you get it set up correctly, why mess with the threaded rods and bolts? Leave them be. With the trailer still hitched to the tow vehicle, use the tongue jack to raise the coupler. This will effectively shorten the distance between the hitch and WDH brackets, giving the chains some slack. Pull the pin to drop the triangle plate off the bottom of the ball shank then lower the jack and disconnect the trailer from the tow vehicle.

Reconnect the hitch on reverse order, but the key is to make sure the hole for the pin in the ball shank is perpendicular to the A-frame centerline. I got myself a 3ft piece of 5/8” aluminum rod from Home Depot just for this. Back the tow vehicle up to the trailer and attach the coupler to the ball. Insert the rod through the hole for the triangle pin plate and turn the ball shank so the rod is perpendicular to the trailer. Now the hitch is aligned no matter what angle it was at when you unhitched or re-hitched the trailer. Jack up the tongue jack, attach the triangle plate with the pin, lower it back to the ground. The chains will have the exact same tension as last time.

For those reading along, this all probably makes zero sense if you’ve never used an Andersen No Sway WDH.
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Old 06-02-2022, 06:59 PM   #18
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You provided some clear steps. I will give it a try. I have had the non-perpendicular problem but did not have the bar to reset. Thanks.
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Old 06-02-2022, 07:45 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by Shane826 View Post
Once you get it set up correctly, why mess with the threaded rods and bolts? Leave them be. With the trailer still hitched to the tow vehicle, use the tongue jack to raise the coupler. This will effectively shorten the distance between the hitch and WDH brackets, giving the chains some slack. Pull the pin to drop the triangle plate off the bottom of the ball shank then lower the jack and disconnect the trailer from the tow vehicle.

Reconnect the hitch on reverse order, but the key is to make sure the hole for the pin in the ball shank is perpendicular to the A-frame centerline. I got myself a 3ft piece of 5/8” aluminum rod from Home Depot just for this. Back the tow vehicle up to the trailer and attach the coupler to the ball. Insert the rod through the hole for the triangle pin plate and turn the ball shank so the rod is perpendicular to the trailer. Now the hitch is aligned no matter what angle it was at when you unhitched or re-hitched the trailer. Jack up the tongue jack, attach the triangle plate with the pin, lower it back to the ground. The chains will have the exact same tension as last time.

For those reading along, this all probably makes zero sense if you’ve never used an Andersen No Sway WDH.
When my pin holes are out of line, I just raise the jack a little higher. This gives the chain more slack and allows some flexibility for aligning the holes.

I have to do that each time that I move the trailer. Both places that I park on my property are not aligned when dropping the trailer.
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Old 06-02-2022, 07:49 PM   #20
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Originally Posted by markozip View Post
That is likely, since with the Anderson I really do know how much to tighten up those red shock absorbers. I measure the hitch before and after coupling to get the bumper at same elevation. But you can over torque. A torque setting would be useful. Next time I will back off as that is easy to do. Thanks.
The instructions say to hand tighten those nuts until the slack is out of the chain. Then mark one of the points on the nuts with a sharpie. Turn the nuts exactly 4 more complete revolutions then stop.

That's what I did on mine and it worked perfectly. It's all about "distance" not "torque".
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