Pintle Vs. Standard ball Hitch what are your thoughts?

[quickfarms]

Pintle is a much better hitch. Works well on and off road. I do not know what all this clunking is unless you guys want your vehicle to be like a car, if so drive a car. Drive sanely with a properly balanced trailer and there is any noise. Now if you get a trailer that does not have any younger weight then it can clunk.

My big pintle hooks have an air can on the back that forces a block out that clamps the lunette.

I do not know why there is a fin welded on that one pintle hook. If the DOT saw that you would be out of service.

 

[quickfarms]

If you had read it, I explained why the fin in my post. I doubt that the DOT or the CHP cares on a 10k rated pintle and since I don't have to go thru the Scales they're very unlikely to ever notice it. Maybe on a Class 8 truck sized pintle, but then those don't have a 'wristed' lunette so the problem doesn't exist.

I have never had a problem or heard of this problem before.

Some class 8 trucks, or trailers, do have a rotating lunette or pintle hook. I have one of each sitting in the yard and

Both are class 8 and can be rotated by hand without any tools.

The lunette on the 1/4 ton military trailers require a long bar to rotate it is the spring is correctly torqued.

I can conceive of it happening but you would have to be backing the trailer up an embankment at an angle in a jackknifed situation. But even then the rotational force on the lunette would be very low.

If it was a real issue it would already be cast into the pintle.

 

[highlandercj-7]

IMHO, a pintle is only good for extreme weight. Heavy hauling keeps it planeted in the saddle. Light weight bouncy trailers have no need for it. I use them everyday at my Job and I hate them. A good ball covers 90% of what most folks need. If you exceed that need, step to a multi axis coupler.

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

I decided to try the pintle/lunette system to see if it really is as loud as has been claimed and I felt that it would likely be. Can't hear it behind the CTD at all.

I did want a 'wristed' lunette and after trying to buy the M416 or M101 Cdn parts at a reasonable price, and failing, I built my own. Note that there is a bronze thrust washer and a bronze flanged bushing against the square plate. The second "washer" under the ring is a very large Belleville washer. Using it allows rotation, but with friction damping. Currently rotating the ring requires about 3' of leverage, so it spins, but not easily. To give some sense of scale those are 7" long 9/16" G8 bolts with prevailing torque G8 lock-nuts.

There has been some discussion in the past (in IH8Mud's trailer sub-forum I think) about backing the trailer uphill around a corner with a pintle and wristed lunette that causes a binding situation when the lunette can 'loop under' the pintle far enough to lock up the system. So I added a 'shark fin' to the pintle to prevent this from happening.

I've used these to tow Patch, the Wonder Yota, out to a base-camp in the Calicos and up into the Owens Valley, and to tow our TrailBlazer off-road tent trailer to Bodie via the Cottonwood route and have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of noise or clanking and the robustness of the coupling. I suspect that given the range of sizes of mostly lunettes but also pintles that matching the two parts is crucial to how much noise they make in use.

And I thought I had a Frankencoupler!? I like the design and the fab work. Looks beefy as heck too.

I am not a lunette hater, I just prefer the other options out there. I drove my trailer around for a couple of years with the short tongue and the lunette. It was fine loaded and sucked empty. Backing up a trailer with a shorty tongue or draw-bar also sucketh. I needed to extent, and while I could have with an extension lunette...I opted out.

My CDN M101 unlike many I have seen apparently saw a LOT of use. My OEM lunette was pretty well worn and had a very distinct thinning in the front portion where it contacted the hitch. Probably needed replacement. I picked up a newer OEM one from a member here on the cheap and hacked the worst one up. The thinner ring probably added to the banging around (loose).

I think that a lunette is a perfectly good system. Simple, tough, easy to use and burly.

Thanks
My idea but not my welding

They say its the thought that counts... well a good welder also counts. Nice outcome no matter who did what. lol

 

[Kendal1219]

While I have NO experience with any of the off-road hitches, I am fairly certain the ball hitch on mine kept my trailer from flopping on its side on Engineer Pass in Colorado. I hit a ledge with a little too much speed and the trailer was headed over. The ball is the only thing that stopped the rotation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Titanpat57]

.I will never use a current design Max Coupler. At least not w/o modifying it to not have any single weld bead standing btwn me and disaster. Doesn't matter that the welder is Certified in the process and application, there are ALWAYS Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.

I am searching for weld failures of the Max Coupler.....and can't find any.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, and understand your point, but I just don't see a reason to fear that the design is somehow flawed.

I think most of us tow well below the 5000# limit as well.

Here's another thread that may help....basically says the same as this thread.:ylsmoke:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-68664.html?

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

My receiver hitch has a single weld holding the drop tongue on. Ok it goes all the way around the 2" stock, but it is still a single weld. I totally get what you are saying, single points of failure suck... but at least you have cables/chains if something does let go.

 

[Damartin]

Both 2" ball for road travel Lunette for off road.

My Pintle of choice has a cast in 2" ball.

Is that something you fabricated yourself? Or can I buy one of those somewhere?

 

[SoDakSooner]

Short of having the option to change like above (very cool) I would not want a ball. I thought I would switch to max coupler or similar but I have grown used to the pintle. It does not bother me at all on the road I rarely hear it. Off road...yes. It clunks. A lot. But I'm used to it. And it's paid for. And it works. That's why I keep it!

Me too. Just a bit noisier.

 

[PhulesAU]

NECRO Thread post.

 

[Buliwyf]

Pintel.

Just make sure you are using enough tongue wt to keep it from rattling.

 

[honda250xtitan]

Pintel.

Just make sure you are using enough tongue wt to keep it from rattling.

hey get back to the super duty forum!

 

[VDBAZFJ]

Just an update on my previous post from 4 years ago regarding the pintle. I built a tear drop last year and decided I would be all fancy and use a max coupler. NOT the best thing on my trailer. I am actually disappointed in it. It clunks just like my pintle does. (The trailer receiver is a little bit larger than the max coupler. ) Also not crazy about the wear on the coupler. From both the slop but also the bushings in the coupler. Wouldn't do it again. Pintle and lunette are my preferred method so far.

 

[rnArmy]

I have a pintle hitch mounted to a 2" receiver adapter to slide into the 2" receiver on my Jeep. And I have a lunette ring that slides into the 2" receiver on the tongue of my trailer. I've found that often the banging sound you hear is either one of those pivoting up-and-down on the hitch pin in their respective 2" receivers. Shims or a set-bolt (kinda hidden in the picture by the hitch pin clip on the trailer's tongue) to limit or prevent movement in the 2" receivers gets rid of most of the banging noise.

And I just like the ease of getting the trailer connected and disconnected to the Jeep when using a pintle hitch; you just have to be close and drop the lunette ring onto the open pintle hitch jaw. None of that having to get it "just right" to get it to connect and latch in place.

The best of both worlds would be to get a rotating pintle hitch (aka: Dixon Bate hitch, NATO Tow Hitch, or NRC 2051 Hitch). It has a pin you can pull that will allow the hitch to rotate 360 degrees (or leave the pin in, and it functions as a regular pintle hitch).

Example: http://www.paddockspares.com/nrc2051-nato-tow-hitch.html (any Land Rover owners here have connections in Europe for a group buy?) This is just one place that sells them. Generally, for the price of a max coupler or other multi axis type hitch, you almost could buy one of these NATO hitches (third picture below). That would be my ideal choice.

https://www.for-sale.co.uk/nato-hitch

 

[Mundo4x4Casa]

The multi use pintel on my 1955 Bradley jeep trailer.

On the Mojave Road:

On my 1999 XJ:

This short vid is the most compelling for using a pintel. After doing the Mojave Road the first time with a ball and socket hitch the socket got hogged out: Click to play video:

If I never had much swing or got close to the exrteme edge of travel, a 2" ball would be fine.