Welded Hitch

If you use a welded hitch to hook up trailers. You might need to look it over. I was pulling a fertilizer buggy with six tons in it. When the hitch broke off at the weld. Had my chains on and was going slow so no damage was done.

Owner of the feed store I work at. Has pulled all welded hitches from our trucks. From now on only forged ones will be used. Anyone that uses a welded hitch. Gets to look for a new job.

Are you talking about the hitch insert square tubing with the drop part of it welded to the tubing?

What exactly broke? If a hitch is designed and welded properly it should never break. Dave

That's exactly what I was wondering Tom. But no pick-up bumper-pull receiver hitch is rated at over 5000-6000 pounds anyway, so nobody should be pulling a loaded fertilizer spreader like that to start with.

Yes it broke at the weld.

Thanks I did not know the rating. It was sold as a heavy duty hitch. I know they have had them for a few years. I will check that out.

Sorry, Bill. I just looked it up and I was wrong. I guess they do make receiver hitches that go all they way up to 18,000 pounds.

http://www.curtmfg.com/index.cfm?event=pageview&contentpieceid=1375

I believe the part that broke would be called the SHANK, or DRAWBAR.

This is the part that inserts into the receiver on the truck, and accepts the hitch ball.

Welded shanks are generally only rated to 5000 or 6000lbs. There is nothing wrong with them as long as you don't try to pull TWO to THREE TIMES as much as they're rated for!!!

In this case, the boss is the idiot for buying the shanks in the first place. He should fire himself.

Now go look at the ratings on the frame-mounted receiver on the trucks you're using to pull these spreaders... I bet they're the factory receivers, and not rated anywhere near what you're pulling with them. A loaded 6-ton fertilizer spreader is going to run about 8 tons gross.

That's pretty typical for a feed mill... The local feed mill delivered loaded fertilizer wagons with 3/4 ton pickups. No brakes, no lights on the wagons. Factory receiver on the truck, and a cheap shank from Walmart...

Those wagons shuck and buck like nobody's business. God help you if you need to stop.

Only in the past couple of years has the feed mill started delivering fertilizer using single and tandem-axle commercial trucks.

Rechecked my logs. Only had three tons in the buggy. Hitch is rated at 12000 pounds. The forged ones we now use are rated at twenty thousand pounds.
The trucks we use have the hitch main frame welded to the frame of the truck. No bumpers involved.

But regardless of what was or was not the load. I think it would still be a good idea to check any welded hitch. Plus use the safety chains.

Yes they are hard to stop. But we are not allowed to get over 30 MPH. Take the back roads to the plant and still at times have people behind me.

Very friendly people. They wave and talk to you all the time. Just don't understand that one finger wave.

Checked ours. The highest rated ones we have are 20,000 pounds.

No the boss is not an idiot for buying the hitches we use. Talked to him today about it. He sells three types of hitches.
1 6,000 pounds for light duty. Mostly to customers that only pull small trailers
2 12,000 pounds for medium duty
3 20,000 pounds for heavy duty.
But since we now only use 20,000 pound hitches. I think the only thing we have to worry about now. Is the idiots on the road.