New lower hitch

[Mustangsud]

Had a welding shop weld a lower pintle bracket for pulling our normal ht. trailers. We don't pull anything extraordinarily heavy. Our intention is to do some testing with various loads and evaluate for any bending and cracking. They used same size steel as what the OEM bracket is made of.

 

[SCM35A2]

Nice!

 

[Ellis6]

Very timely post. I’m looking for a tilt deck to haul some heavy equipment. I won’t be hauling frequently, but need to be able to move my equipment offsite if faced with another forest fire. The fires in Oregon this summer struck close to home, doing significant damage, including burning a travel trailer to the ground. The Pintle on my MK23 is about 40” off the ground, and most civy trailers seem to have the lunette at least a foot lower.

I’m curious to hear how this holds up for you. The heaviest piece of equipment I own is about 32,000 pounds, so trailer with load will be in the 42,000 pound range. Again, not frequent use, but contingent for escaping fire. It’s sad to see the many millions of $ in forestry equipment destroyed this summer just in our area.

cheers,

Dirk

 

[Nomadic]

It looks beefy.

 

[TacMac2012]

I personally would not trust that, at least not for anything more than a 2" receiver hitch would handle. Things like that need to be overbuilt, that is definitely not overbuilt. Plus, some of the welds don't look like they got good penetration.

I would run some bracing forward to the suspension assembly maybe, it would make a huge difference.

I have a 25 ton trailer, but I modified the trailer instead of modifying the truck. I just feel like if I ever went to sell it some people would look at a homebuilt hitch as a negative (I know I would)

 

[Mustangsud]

I personally would not trust that, at least not for anything more than a 2" receiver hitch would handle. Things like that need to be overbuilt, that is definitely not overbuilt. Plus, some of the welds don't look like they got good penetration.

I would run some bracing forward to the suspension assembly maybe, it would make a huge difference.

I have a 25 ton trailer, but I modified the trailer instead of modifying the truck. I just feel like if I ever went to sell it some people would look at a homebuilt hitch as a negative (I know I would)

The welding job on this is actually outstanding and very well done. The professional welder who did this has done jobs for us for 20 years with zero issues. We have full confidence in pulling the loads we anticipate.

We pull about six different trailers, which other trucks also pull, so modifying trailers to this truck is a no go, and in itself easily has engineering fail potential.

As to the last point, well, resale factors are simply irrelevant to us.

 

[Nomadic]

That hitch bracket can be cut off and the excess could be hit with a grinder. Nobody is going to sleep with it.

Although I might sleep with mine if I ever get one, lol.

 

[TacMac2012]

Luckily I don't have to worry about if I think it is safe or not. Being you are in TX the chance of you killing me or my family is slim. I have been welding and fabricating for the past 20 years, have done so much as to build a race winning off-road buggy from scratch. Simply adding bracing forward to the suspension bracketry would make that TONS stronger. The way it sits it will support a vertical load, but it doesn't have much surface area to help with the braking (or acceleration) forces put on it. If you had a 2-2.5" receiver I wouldn't be concerned, but that looks like a 30 ton pintle hitch.

In the end, you will do what you want, it's your wallet paying for it if something happens, as your insurance company very likely might not cover it.