Ring & pintle hitch question

[mcfarmall]

For those who have run a ring and pintle hitch trailer, does the trailer bounce around and make a lot of clunking and clanking noise when towing either with a load or empty? Seems to me there is a lot of slop in that arrangement, much more so than with a traditional ball hitch. A ball hitch trailer can be a noisy thing going down the road empty, not so much when loaded though.

 

[dickfoster]

Pintle hitches are made for rough, off pavement, uneven terrain and slow going. They are not intended for highway use which ball hitches are designed for. That said there are combination pintle and ball hitches. I have something like this on my off road truck. When towing with the ball and a matching ball hitch it is no worse than a regular ball hitch.

Often most of the rattle and noise is in the receiver and not the hitch itself.

 

[1stDeuce]

Actually they ARE intended for highway use, they're just not common on lighter trailers. Most Fed-EX and UPS trucks towing doubles are towing off a pintle... And most any equipment trailer behind a dump truck is pintle as well.

I have a few military trailers with pintle hitches. If you're towing them with the setup above, which is a combination hitch, then they are a bit sloppy, and with a lightly loaded trailer, you'll get some commotion out of the hitch if the going gets rough, particularly if the trailer is empty. If I use an actual pintle hitch instead of the combo, there is little noise or detectable slop, even though there's obviously more than a ball... Once you load the trailer, the tongue weight keeps it quiet, for the most part. At least when towing down the road.

The plus of a ball hitch is that it's relatively quiet even when the trailer is empty, with little tongue weight.
The plus of the pintle is that it will handle quite a bit more tongue weight, it's less fussy to hook up, and as I see it, your trailer is less likely to disappear, or get borrowed all the time.

If I was going to build a heavy trailer that wasn't a gooseneck, I'd consider putting a pintle on it at this point. SO much easier to hook up, since you just back up till it goes bump, and then lower it and flip the latch down. If you're close enough that it doesn't shift to the side when you bump it, you're close enough to drop it on the hook. If the trailer shifts slightly to one side or the other as you bump it, then you know which way to reposition without even getting out of the truck.

Just relaying my experience...

 

[mrmikey]

They do make a pintle hitch that uses a brake chamber to take out the slop. probably a bit bigger that what you need tho SAF Holland PH-21RA11 45-Ton Rigid Type Pintle Hook With Air Cushioned Snubber: AnythingTruck.com, Truck & Trailer Parts and Accessories Warehouse. You plumb it into the brake air, when you take the maxis' off, it presurizes the chamber on the hitch.....Mike

 

[1stDeuce]

BTW, A ball hitch should not be making much noise at all if properly adjusted, but often the insert fits loosely in the receiver and makes for some noise with an empty trailer. This is particularly true on unibody vehicles, where the hitch bolts to the body, and all that sheet metal acts like a speaker to amplify the rattle...

Loaded, you should always have enough tongue weight that you'll hear little noise with any hitch type...

 

[adventure bob]

Being legal for over the road use and being meant for it are two separate things. I think Dick was trying to say that they were originally designed for off road use due to the horizontal articulation they provide. Pintle hooks are noisier than a ball because the eye can move back and forth in the pintle. Its not dramatic and not bothersome; its not like its back there banging around as if somone's hitting your truck with a hammer. With anything a common pickup can tow, I don't think "additional tongue weight" is an issue. You can get a ball to handle anything a pintle will, within that trucks weight limits. Now if you happen to own a deuce and a half or a 5K that would be a different issue. I pulled a pintle hooked trailer through a couple of trails in moab that a ball wouldn't have survived.

 

[1stDeuce]

That's pretty cool, Mike. At least for semi's, where you're not likely to turn that sharp. To clarify for those who don't know how air brakes work, you plumb the chamber to the parking brake release lines... Parking brakes are spring apply, so releasing the parking brakes actually applies pressure to the chambers to overcome the spring force. When you apply the parking brake, you actually release the pressure... (That's why the school bus or semi makes a sound like air releasing when the big yellow parking brake button is pulled out.)

 

[1stDeuce]

I know what you're saying AdventureBob, but I'm sticking to what I said. There are plenty of pintles actually designed and made for highway use. They usually do not offer the articulation of the pintles we're used to seeing on a pickup, but there's nothing wrong with a pintle hitch on the highway, legally, or realistically, and for heavy trailers being towed by larger trucks, a pintle hitch is the only thing you'll find, whether you're on the highway or not. (IE there isn't a ball hitch made I'd use to tow a dozer behind a dump truck...)

Standard Pintle hitches do offer more articulation than a ball, particularly in up/down trailer movement, and will last longer when used in a harsh environment, but you'd have to be in some rough terrain for it to be the selling point. (Like Moab. )

 

[dieselcrawler]

Ive used a pintle hitch on my 20' deckover for the past 5 years, and on other trailers before that. Many of the car hauler type 5 ton trailers at work also have them.

There is a little slop in that style hitch, and it can and does move which can be un-nerving at times but its not a deal breaker for me.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Yes and Yes. I hate them for that fact and it's hard on all the drive line components.

 

[PILOON]

Another point is that generally the vehicle that is hauling a pintle hitch trailer is so noisy in itself that the driver simply can't hear the noise that you do.

Think a 12 wheel dump truck towing a flatbed loaded with an excavator.

(like a big Cummings with air brakes and perhaps a Jackob brake system as well as a 12 yard dump box that rattles and clunks over every bump in the road, and that not counting on the loud exhaust )

 

[DK35vince]

My experience, some light trucks with pintle hitch have some slop and can move and bang around a little..
My work truck (tandem axle) I pull a 40,000 trailer with pintle moving equipment every day and it fits tight. There is not slop, no banging, nothing.

 

[TomSeller]

In my experience they only bang around when the trailer is loaded too far back and there is not enough weight on the hitch. When there isn't enough weight on the hitch they can be unnerving and a reminder to stop and re look at how the trailer is loaded/hitched. Height of the pintle can play into weight distribution as well.

 

[j.lwelding]

i love pintle style hitches, more forgiving when hooking up, I find that with proper tongue weight they are not noisy, I have 4 trailers now and two with pintles, and am going to convert the other two to pintles as well.

 

[mcfarmall]

Thanks for all the helpful replies!

 

[dickfoster]

Being legal for over the road use and being meant for it are two separate things. I think Dick was trying to say that they were originally designed for off road use due to the horizontal articulation they provide. Pintle hooks are noisier than a ball because the eye can move back and forth in the pintle. Its not dramatic and not bothersome; its not like its back there banging around as if somone's hitting your truck with a hammer. With anything a common pickup can tow, I don't think "additional tongue weight" is an issue. You can get a ball to handle anything a pintle will, within that trucks weight limits. Now if you happen to own a deuce and a half or a 5K that would be a different issue. I pulled a pintle hooked trailer through a couple of trails in moab that a ball wouldn't have survived.

Rock crawling with a trailer is for crazy people. I saw a guy try to get a trailer though gatekeeper on the Rubicon once with a pintle hook setup it. It took him a long long time and wasn't a whole lotta fun for him nor was it for the crowd backed up behind him trying to get on the trail. Backing up isn't exactly easy or straight forward in tight quarters over three and four foot boulders. Don't know why you'd want to pull a trailer on trails that take a single day to run anyway. In Moab, I always stay in a motel because every trail that I've run there can be done in a day or less. Sometimes we can knock out two or more a day depending on level of difficulty and length. Although I can see pulling a trailer make you take a lot longer. I pack a lot of gear but never needed a trailer, even a week long trip.

 

[adventure bob]

We tend to go out on the longer trails, camp, and finish in the morning. Start all over again. Mostly due to heat. Drug the trailer as a test. The golden crack was definitely interesting and would not have been doable without a pintle on a pivot. It did do a lot of dragging and it does take some skill to be able to wheel a 6 wheel articulated vehicle with getting completely hung up. Backing up, or do or die obstacles add a whole 'nother level of complexity.

 

[Tomtint]

I have the pintle rings on my equipment trailers. They are noisy and do bang when stopping / starting, as well as when cornering after a stop. Weight distribution makes no difference. There is about 1/2-3/4" where the ring can move.

 

[dickfoster]

We tend to go out on the longer trails, camp, and finish in the morning. Start all over again. Mostly due to heat. Drug the trailer as a test. The golden crack was definitely interesting and would not have been doable without a pintle on a pivot. It did do a lot of dragging and it does take some skill to be able to wheel a 6 wheel articulated vehicle with getting completely hung up. Backing up, or do or die obstacles add a whole 'nother level of complexity.

LOL yeah I can imagine unless the trailer had some pretty big tires. Go to Pritchett and try rocker knocker with a trailer sometime. Of course there are many other interesting obstacles in Moab that would pose a big problem with a trailer, I couldn't imagine doing Escalator with one. It was interesting enough when I did it IFS but was much easier after the axle swap with larger tires.
Did you get a chance to do Lion's Back before they closed it.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Any play will make you a better driver as you learn to throttle properly to deal with it. IMHO, a pintle is alot more secure than the normal BP hitch when you get into heavier applications. The only thing about the lighter duty ones are the four bolts holding them on. I have seen grade eight's shear due to rough roads and not overloading.