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Thank you for watching our video. I guess I'll have to work on my jokes, the welders crew consist of his wife and small child. The spray she was using was water to prevent fires from sparks coming off the welding. The total repairs took several hours and during that time the Raydon's wife and child were with my wife and for the most part, inside our trailer.

Thanks for watching our video. We are currently in the process of selling our TT and moving to a 5th Wheel, so we aren't moving around at all currently. I took the part off that broke, the yoke and have handed it over to a welder in town who is rebuilding the unit. I believe the rust is the result of water getting inside the box beams and rusting from the inside out. I've asked the welder to see if they can figure out how to close the unit up and prevent water from getting inside. I really don't want to pass trouble onto anyone else when I sell the trailer.

Thank you William for watching the video and pointing out that the manual does mention chain routing. Although my manual only mentions this once (perhaps my version is older than yours) Here is what it says: Route your tow chains..UNDER the Main Hitch Unit and BETWEEN where the Spring Bars insert in the bottom of the Main Hitch Unit. When you are straight in line with your trailer the chains are the longest they ever need to be. When routed properly they should hang about 1” from the bottom of the Main Hitch Unit. Perhaps you stopped watching prior to the end of the video, but I do in fact state this same thing and I show what a set of properly routed chains should look like. I also show a couple of other points to check to ensure the unit will operate as designed. The later part of the video also shows that the Yoke was rebuilt and is now far more reinforced than the original design, so I don't need to purchase another one. thank you again.

@@kenandpattistravels Yeah I'm sorry I wasn't trying to accuse you of misleading people about what broke the hitch, I was responding to other commenters. Perhaps it's not mentioned that much in the manual. I've watched a lot of pro-pride videos and they stress it pretty heavily in those so much so that I always check my chain routing. In fact I just never remove the chains from between the WD bars.

Hello Jonathan, I realize there is some confusion about the young child. That is the welders family. The mother is right there with the young child. It was quite hot that day and we brought them into the RV for the majority of time that the work was being done.

merci beaucoup.. which is nearly all of the French that I know. Growing up I heard little smatterings of French and German, that was one of the French phrases. German came out when I was in trouble!

Yes Sir! So far so good. We are seeing about 10 to 11 MPG towing, and 15 MPG mixed. We have the 4:11 gears.

Thanks Terry, we are in negotiations to move to a 5th Wheel and leave the hitch behind.

agree with what you say but in this case it appears the mother and baby are with the welder, the owner makes a statement he believes she and baby were there to keep him out of repairers way lol

You are correct. I just my humor needs a bit of polishing.

I'm sure the repair will be fine, it's not a forged heat treated part, but yeah I'd probably replace it too. I'm not at all saying the welder did a bad job, it looked pretty stellar to me, and is likely stronger than when brand new, but I would be worried about liability as the load rating of the hitch is based on its original configuration. Get in a bad wreck and lawyers would be quick to place blame on a hitching system that now has no engineered load rating due to modification of the original product, regardless of it likely exceeding the strength of when it was originally made

Great questions, the many responses asking similar questions have opened my eyes to removing the hitch and let the truck do the work it is capable of. I say remove, because the weight distribution function in this hitch also positions and aligns the received for the stinger. I did need the WDH with the 1/2 ton and 3/4 RAMs, the variable rate coil springs are really soft for the first four or five inches.

We didn't on this trip, but we spend large portions of summer in the Colorado Basin and we visited dead horse two years ago. Honestly all of southern Utah is amazing! We spent a ton of time in Canyonlands and the Grand Staircase last year.

That is an amazingly great idea! I will do exactly that. We carry a bunch of straps currently, but the chains would withstand situations like that you describe. Thank you.

You could chain up half an axle and take the wheel off if you had a hub going south too. This will overload all the tires though so I would only do that in an emergency.

Ravens and crows are incredibly intelligent birds. We've seen where they come into frequent contact with humans, they can quickly figure out who are the ones they can trust and interact with. The first one stayed inches away from us at the truck. Years ago we took my mother to Yellowstone and she stayed at our rental car while we took a quick hike. We got back and the car was surrounded by dozens of Ravens and my mother was sitting in the front seat trying to look innocent.

Good Morning Mike, sorry for the slow response to your question. Our Arches video took me forever to complete. Our trailer is a Grand Design Imagine 2800BH, empty they weigh about 6400 empty and have GVWR of 8500 lbs. We were probably in 7500 to 8000 pound range at the time of the video. Our first truck was a half ton, which this trailer was at the end range of what that truck could pull. It pulled fine, stopping was horrible. This was the maiden voyage for this truck.

How do you think "Metal Pipelines" get glued together??

common enough in heavy equipment and commercial/industrial situations. And I'd put a lot more faith in that welder's work than the original.

@@donhappel9566 Complete correct and I agree. His main industry was supporting the farmers and their equipment in the region. When things break in the field sometimes you can't move it. Did you notice their spraying the grass in the area with water to prevent fires. This family knew what they were doing.

Was going to say exactly that. Definitely not a fresh break - it's been failing for quite a while.

Exactly. I also agree there are much better and less complicated hitches out there

We were in Ouray in our Class C Motorhome and we were supposed to take the Million Dollar Highway to Pagosa Speings. However, beforehand we drove from Ouray to Silverton in our rental vehicle and I white knuckled it the entire way. I decided that there was NO WAY we were taking that route to Pagosa Springs. We took a route past Telluride that added 2 more hours to our trip. But it was worth it.

Robert I'm really bothered by this point as well. I frequently scape, sand and repaint the parts of the RV that are rusting and this seems to need it more than any other spot. I have come up with a theory that due to the open box design of the part, that water is lying inside of it and it is rusting from the inside out. I am taking the part to welder here in town and to ask them to look it over and to see if we can close off the unit and cover the internal parts of the unit with a solution to prevent rust. The inside of the part is not painted. Again, this is only a theory of mine and I have not quantified this idea, but I do think about it a lot and have read several documents now on how metal rusts and what plays into the oxidation process. Thank you for watching the video.

Thanks Greg, your experiences are consistent with mine, both before and since the repair. Since this video, we got chased by a storm system that brought several tornados. We were getting hit with side wind burst in the 45 plus range and the trailer stayed directly in-line with the truck. The same holds true for hard braking, the trailer never gets out of line. I don't need the weight distribution with this truck but the that function was critical with the prior two trucks. RAMs ride wonderful because of the rear variable rate coil springs, but that also means a lot of sag when loaded. I could bring the truck back to level which was critical for braking power. Thanks for watching and you live in a beautiful state. Take care.

Agree, I just have to accept the vendors response to the breakage. I do check it now before, during and after towing now. We not seen any other issues. That sort of supports the vendors assessment.

Ben using blue ox for 20 years and will never change.

We enjoy talking to the customer as we charge by the hr.

Thank you Jonathan, that makes perfect sense.

Thank you George, that means a lot coming from you. When are you publishing your how to travel the world book?

Our family tows with 3 Hensleys and 1 propride.... I'm gonna keep a close eye on the propride yoke....

I do agree that a lot of how you feel about driving in the mountain is what you are exposed to on a regular basis. We recently stated at Fort Mountain state park in Georgia. You might not recognize the mountains there, compared to your rockies, being that these aren't even over 3000 feet! However, the roads were very narrow, much more so that the 550. The downside of the road had no edge beyond the tar, and on the opposite uphill side, there was a deep ditch for water drainage. So the lanes where tight to begin with. We had numerous cars coming across the yellow line, as they were looking at their phones, or messing with the radio, or just driving to fast for conditions. However, it was a much intense ride, than what we went through on the 550, as we constantly had to dodge the wonderers. Besides, the views were nothing compared to those of million dollar highway.

I love your choice for a profile picture! There are no signs that say you can't drive the road, Trucks are required to keep their speed to 40 MPH coming down the hill. Statistics for the road tell the story, it has very few accidents, typically 40 per year, however, within those 40, there are around 8 deaths. So when something happens, it can go very badly. Frankly the area is so beautiful, it's worth the effort it takes to drive it.

I've done that road by bike (meaning Triumph Speed Triple, not some pedal-thing) and and 4x4. And yeah, it's very scenic but nothing crazy regarding 'danger'. God help us I hope they never put up a ton of guard rails and spoil the views. And while I would never tell somebody they can't go there, I at least hope you used the pull-outs to let traffic by. Nothing worse than being stuck behind an ultra-slow moving RV on a great twisty road!

Great observation and question, it truly is an embarrassing overkill for that trailer. The reason is this is the truck-trailer is a progression of purchases and this is going to be the (according to Patti) last truck we buy. When we first purchased the trailer we had a truck, a half-ton. This trailer was within the tow and cargo weight capacities of that truck, but it struggled to control and stop the trailer. The hitch, which is still on the trailer, helped with the control, but stopping wasn't fixable. I looked to replace the truck, which was in the middle of the COVID shortages and used trucks where in short supply and cost as much and some times more than new because you couldn't find a new truck. We stumbled upon a 3/4 ton gaser (the availability of diesels at that time was almost non existent, or WAY over-priced) which which could pull the truck with ease, but STILL struggled to stop the trailer coming down the mountains. This trailer has always had minimal braking capacity. (10 inch by 2 inch drum). RAM also has coil springs in their 3/4 line and this makes them kind of soft, so the weight distribution was still really important. This past spring RAM seemed to really want to sell this truck and offered it with a 20k discount and we jumped on it. The hitch has simply come along with the trucks. We do plan to move up to a 5th wheel this year (or next) and this truck has the capacity for anything we want to choose. I do credit the truck with keeping us safe here, as it was still solid in the hairpin turns when the hitch snapped and when floppy. Sorry for the long response, but it was a great question and deserved a complete response.

​@@kenandpattistravelswhy a fifth-wheel? With all the breaking frames that are on RUclips. Buying a fifth-wheel is asking for more trouble. Stick with what you have. Get rid of that hitch and go simple. I have a 2021 Ram 3/4 ton and tow with it. Tires on this truck were junk from factory. I upgraded them and have no trouble towing all over the mountains here in West Virginia. I have been as far as the mountains of Tennessee and as far north as Pennsylvania, the side next to New York. No issues with the truck or my simple hitch. It is the Reese hitch and no weight distribution bars. Just the receiver and insert with 2 5/16 ball. Set your brakes a bit tighter for big mountains and no trouble happens. Stay safe out there. Oh I am a tractor trailer driver too.

Thank you. I'll look at your suggestions, although we are now leaning towards purchasing a fifth wheel soon, and leaving this hitch setup behind completely.

Its a torsion hitch homie, designed to absorb shock. Just because you don't know what it is or you're stuck in 1947 doesn't mean it's poorly designed. Design one better, you could probably make money. But you can't, so instead you make an ass out of yourself 😂😂😂😂😂

@@natemartinez4595 look at the thin steel...piss poor welding it's junk. It absorbed the shock by tearing itself apart. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's better.

@@natemartinez4595 oh it's you that's the ass "homie"

I was thinking the same thing. Reese or Eaz-lift.

I completely agree. We're going on 3 years now full time and we've been very impressed with what a wonderful group of people the RV community is.

Thank you for your compliment. You and I are signing from the same sheet of music then, I agree completely with that objective. The entire Colorado Basin is amazing and my favorite place to head to every year. I think you'll enjoy our Top Ten parks video from 23, it shows the places we enjoyed visiting most. I broke it into two videos to avoid being to long, the first shows parks entirely from that area.

Yes they are. He drove at least an hour to get to us and when he saw the work was far more than expected, he just rolled with it and did a great job. Not to mention he was very reasonably priced. I am very thankful he and his crew exists.

Thank you Keith and Denice. This small town put on such a great forth of july display that I may go back there every year. After the fireworks the major came over and thanked us for coming and asked how we liked the display. Clearly he knew he'd hit a home run with us.

I have to say, 75 degree days and 45 degrees at night was pretty nice. The total lack of humidity was another thing all together however.

GREAT Question! I've looked at a several, the one most represented is from Pepwave, which is what truckers use. We have the Max BR1 Pro 5G. This is now replaced by the BR2 line. The BR number is the number of radios that the unit has. This matters as the power outputs will decrease for each "radio frequency" the chip is supporting. In our case, a radio supports cellular and WIFI. It also has ethernet which is where are second and most common Internet sources tie in. The internal networks are tied to the Pepwave wifi (which I set as low power levels as the distance of the devices connecting to it are quite short and theirs no block walls to interfere). I also have starlink, which we use out west and T-Mobile home internet, which works great on the east coast. I have the Starlink Mobile plan, which allows me to stop and start anytime. The T-Mobile is a monthly subscription which we leave on all the time. Starlink gives about 100 Mb of download and 10 to 20Mb uplink. T-Mobile varies greatly with highs in the 300 Mb download and 10 Mb upload to a few Mb download (which it's tied to LTE vs 5G ). I mentioned that Pepwave also supports cellular, which we previously used, but the subscriptions where insanely costly and they were limited to 100MB per month or less and we'd use more than that. I had T-Mobile and Verzion subscriptions, so I could select the fastest carrier at the location we were at. This was also nice as the RV was online while we traveled and I could remotely log in and turn on the AC an hour or so before stopping travel for the day. This did require a major investment in Solar, Battery and Inverters in the RV. Thanks for the great question.

Yes, trailer too; Addie, for adventure. I must say I really miss the 2500, the 6.4l gas motor and 8 speed transmission where so smooth, but he diesel with its engine brake make stopping the an entirely different experience. Plus RAM was offering 20k discounts and this is something unheard lately. What I didn't touch upon was Patti insists on color coding everything, so we are limited to trucks that are either white, black or gray, due to the trailer being these colors.

The NPS has asked for a couple of pictures of mine, but they've yet to offer any compensation. I have asked the NPS how one goes about getting permission to use a drone to video some of these places, as that perspective would offer some amazing views; I have yet to hear back. One place that I think you'd like, as it can be reached by boat, is Acadia NP in Maine. When Gail is on her feet again, you two will have to make that trek.