Tow balls and trailer attachments

dince · Apr 24, 2012

Can anyone suggest a source for light weight trailer attachments to suit 50mm tow balls, or preferably smaller tow balls, for lawn tractor trailers, please?

Bird · Apr 24, 2012

You might have to be more specific. Of course in the USA, our trailer hitch balls are generally in inches; i.e., 1 7/8", 2", and 2 5/16". Lawn tractors generally are only equipped with a hole in the hitch to use a pin instead of a ball. In fact, with 1 7/8" being our smallest hitch ball, I don't think one is made with a shank small enough for the hole in the hitch. So I reamed the hole and have a 1 7/8" ball on my Toro.

dince · Jul 12, 2012

Dear Bird, Many thanks for your reply and apologies for my belated reply - I have been well and truly off-line! Yes, we have same size balls in australia, and fitting one (1 7/8") to Toro etc will be fine. What I am looking for is the coupling to go on the trailer drawbar, to go onto the ball. I can get cast ones - pretty heavy. I am looking for light weight, pressed steel, ones like are on some wood splitters (Yardman) but don't want to pay their "spare parts" prices! I probably need 10!

Wnc3 · Jul 12, 2012

Redneck Trailer Supplies - 20 National Branch Locations - Home
1 7/8" hitch like we use one a jet ski or small boat trailer.

Bird · Jul 12, 2012

I don't know about the prices, but they wouldn't be hard to find here, but I have no idea where you'd look in your part of the world.

QRTRHRS · Jul 12, 2012

Bird said:
You might have to be more specific. Of course in the USA, our trailer hitch balls are generally in inches; i.e., 1 7/8", 2", and 2 5/16". Lawn tractors generally are only equipped with a hole in the hitch to use a pin instead of a ball. In fact, with 1 7/8" being our smallest hitch ball, I don't think one is made with a shank small enough for the hole in the hitch. So I reamed the hole and have a 1 7/8" ball on my Toro.

I bought an 1 7/8 at TSC with a pretty small shank. Have to check, it was either 3/4 or maybe 5/8. It would have fit my zero turn hitch hole but the ball was then too close to slip my trailer tongue over. I had to buy an ATV adaptor that used a more standard size shank. Of course I have several of those laying around.

flyerdan · Jul 12, 2012

It looks like the cheapest one is around $23, due to your standards for couplers which must differ significantly from ours. I'm sure you'd like to find something like this, which is around $10 cheaper, and about twice as much from when I last priced them.

QRTRHRS · Jul 21, 2012

View attachment 274349 View attachment 274350 View attachment 274351 View attachment 274352 View attachment 274353 View attachment 274354 View attachment 274355 View attachment 274356What with some rain finally, the grass is taking off so I got the mowers out and took some shots I thought might be of interest to this thread. I pull a 66" Swisher with my 60" Woods giving maybe 10 foot of capacity.

Doing a lot of hooking/unhooking, I needed a better way to hook the tow behind than the stock pin. On rough terrain, the mower was hard to "bull" around and pin the tongue. I bought this adaptor from Northern then needed to add a ball. I found a ball at TSC with a 5/8" shank to fit the mower hitch but then the adaptor would not go over the ball. Then I added the "Z" shaped adaptor. After I did that I realized I might have just turned over the hitch/axle mount on the Woods. O'well.

I also have photos of the hitch brace I fabbed up for the Swisher. To me, it felt to "springy" so I fooled around with differnet bracing schemes until I settled on the perforated box tubing which I can adjust to any width. The brackets pin to existing holes for quick removel if needed.

Solo, I have to watch my tail swing with the hitch extention a little but it allows me to jack the tow behind pretty hard without bending the hitch.