After installing the Hensley Arrow, the fun began. The
first test was towing my 34' Airstream from Las Vegas, Nevada to Newport
Beach, California during the heat of summer. The wind gusts in the
desert can be remarkable. The Mojave Desert is no exception.
Additionally, the truck traffic on I-15 can be heavy. This combination
can be a "white knuckle" experience resulting in constant steering
corrections to avoid drifting out of your lane. But first things
first.
Hooking up the Airstream to the Ford using the Hensley
for the first time was, to be direct, a bummer. Even following the
instructions provided by Hensley, I spent considerable time attempting to
line up the Ford within the 1/2" horizontal and vertical clearance and
exactly parallel with the centerline of the trailer. I learned several
lessons that make this process easier each time I hooked up.
1) Put some Teflon hitch lub or oil on the hitch
bar. With the fresh paint on the hitch bar and hitch box, it doesn't
slide easily and tends to hang.
2) Do try to line up parallel to the centerline of the
trailer. This is really the key to a quick hookup.
3) Get assistance in hooking up. If your partner or
friend or someone you just met will help, you can get this little puppy
hooked up in no time.
4) The person at the trailer during hookup has the key role:
move the hitch to line up with the hitch bar while giving directions to the
driver to insure the tow vehicle is lined up as straight as possible.
5) If the hitch is not parallel with the ground, or the
truck and trailer are not on the same angle, the person at the trailer will
need to raise or lower the trailer tongue to the correct position to allow
the hitch bar to go in then change the trailer tongue height to match the
tow vehicles front to back slope as the hitch bar goes into the hitch box.
6) If the tow vehicle is not exactly lined up with the
trailer, the person at the trailer can move the hitch box from side to side
somewhat to help line up with the hitch bar and if necessary can move the
hitch box by shifting the jack assemblies front to rear. Side to side
slopes can also be accommodated by raising one of the jack assemblies and
lowering the other one.
7) When the hitch bar is within an one half inch to one inch
of being "home", the final closure can frequently be made easier
by using the Over Center Latches (OCL) to pull them together than by trying
to ram the tow vehicle into the trailer.
After we finally got hooked up the first time (with all
the neighbors watching and "helping") we were ready to hit the
road.
A hint from Peter Kaiser on alignment is worth
noting. He suggests lining up with the midline and then have the
height of the hitch adjusted so that the tow bar just clears the bottom of
the square hole in the hitch. He finds that his hit rate is much
higher than when attempting to get precisely in the middle top to
bottom. This works since most tow vehicles sit slightly higher in the
rear when the trailer is not hooked up. Try it, it may just improve
your hit rate also. Peter painted the end of his hitch bar white,
painted a white dot on the hitch box and uses a mirror on the rear window of
his SUV to aid in lining up the hitch. A more expensive solution is
the use of a backup camera.
SUMMARY: Hooking up the first time
takes the patience of Job, but it gets better. I now line up the tow
vehicle, then turn the driving over to my wife while I maneuver the
hitch. This typically results in fast, one shot hookups (but still not
always).
