# Equalizer Hitch Head Weld Failure?



## H2oSprayer (Aug 5, 2006)

Let me start out by saying that I have no welding experience, therefore I am turning to the members that do happen to know a thing or two about welding to set my mind at ease by either telling me there is nothing wrong here, or telling me to replace before the next use. While unhitching our camper today, I noticed what looks like a crack in the weld on our Equalizer brand hitch head. The hitch is two summers old. Just to give you a bit of orientation to the photo, you can see the ball on the top and one of the bolts that bolt the head to the shank. This particular weld holds the horizontal piece that the ball attaches to, to the vertical piece that bolts to the shank. What looks like separation goes from the top corner of the weld down to the center of the bottom, but does not continue up the other side. I did not notice any movement in the two pieces when I would raise or lower the tongue onto the ball. Thoughts?


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## TwoElkhounds (Mar 11, 2007)

Hey Chris,

That is definitely a failure, I would not tow with that hitch again.

I would contact Equalizer and send them the picture. I have heard that they are very good and will take this sort of thing seriously. I personally would ask to get a new hitch and send this one back to them for their evaluation. I would think that they would be interested in looking at why this failed. You should not have to fix this, too important. If this weld failed, what about the others? All done by the same person or machine. I would not tow again with this hitch.

From what I have heard about Equalizer, they will replace immediately, as they should.

DAN


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## ED_RN (Jun 25, 2006)

Are you sure that was brand new hitch. Hard to tell with the close up but that looks older to me based on the pitting and rust. I agree with the others I wouldn't move the TT in drive way with that the way it is.


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## H2oSprayer (Aug 5, 2006)

Hey guys...thanks for your thoughts. According to my receipt, it was new and installed by my purchasing dealer when we purchased the camper in May of 2012. As my camper sits inside a clean pole barn from November 1st to mid April each winter season, I have never towed with it when the roads would have had salt on them, it simply sat on the floor on my garage during the off season.


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## SLO250RS (Mar 11, 2010)

There can be many variables as to why it cracked but I am sticking with not being pre-heated enough before the welding process.I would contact equalizer about this and see how good their lifetime warranty really is.I had a minor issue with mine after lakeshore installed it and they took care of it.Hope this helps.


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## H2oSprayer (Aug 5, 2006)

Kudos to the customer service at Progress Mfg!! I have been in contact with both Dave and Todd, and they are both interested in get the hitch head back in the hands of their engineering team so they can try to figure out what happened. They are sending out a new head and prepaid return label to get the old one back. I am hopeful that if the engineering team is able to come up with anything, that they will let me know their findings. I'm just happy that I noticed the weld before it became a serious situation.


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## W5CI (Apr 21, 2009)

The folks at Progress Mfg are great to work with, they took care of my problem


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## jake's outback (Jul 24, 2010)

W5CI said:


> The folks at Progress Mfg are great to work with, they took care of my problem


Yes they are. Fixed me up as well&#128522;


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## outbackgeorgia (Jan 28, 2004)

Best guess is the dealer installed a used part on your hitch so he could sell the new piece to someone. Cannot prove anything at this point, but Progress is a great manufacturer.
Let us know how this turns out!
Dave


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