The boxes have all been opened, and the new parts have all been found. A wrinkle has been discovered, I don’t have the necessary deep socket size 11/16 inch. I dug through the sockets bag, and there just wasn’t one there. Being a necessary size for the U bolts to be torqued down to the proper lbs, this was a temporary show stopper. Anne-Marie and I went on a shopping trip, and the first stop was an automotive shop to pickup a small set of sockets. The shopping trip took some energy away from my enthusiasm for installing the hitch yesterday.
One of the old strut assembly rods was bent on the old hitch.
These two pictures show the frame brackets, and how the used one has bent under stress. This is the rod that the screw jacks hang on, and they can have a lot of pressure on them when pulling the spring bar up.
First frame bracket installed, the holes matched up, and the U bolts are all torqued down. The other side didn’t have the holes drilled in the correct places, and after a botched hole attempt, I called it tired for the day. I should finish it all up today.
This is the parts box that is carried in the van. I built this in January 2009 and wrote a story about it on Airforums.com and a Google search for “Hensley hitch parts” will bring the link up on the first page.
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