You guys are losing me. I hook my breakaway throught he same hole as my safety chains on the receiving side of the hitch. That's not recommended? If so, why?
BigSur2
2012 Keystone Bullet 286QBS
2006 Ford F150 5.4 V8
BigSur2 wrote: You guys are losing me. I hook my breakaway throught he same hole as my safety chains on the receiving side of the hitch. That's not recommended? If so, why?
If your hitch breaks away from your tv your tt will still come to a stop
dlos wrote: I'm going to re-install the EQ hitch this weekend. One thing that I am trying to figure out is what to do about the self leveling system on the Armada, there is no way to disable this. When the truck is off and the trailer hooked up, the rear end of the Armada will sag. As soon as the truck is turned on, the self level kicks in and the rear end pick up.
So, do I follow the instructions and set it up with the truck off? Or do I do it with truck on?
If I go with "off", and the it all set up then turn it on and things change what do I do next?
1. Park unloaded vehicle on a level surface. With the ignition on and the doors closed, allow the vehicle to stand for several minutes so that it can level.
2. Measure the height of a reference point on the front and rear bumpers at the center of the vehicle.
3. Attach the trailer to the vehicle and adjust the hitch equalizers so that the front bumper height is within 0 - .5 inches (0 ? 13 mm) of the reference height measured in step 2. The rear bumper should be no higher than the reference height measured in step 2.
Some Armada owners find these instructions to be vague, so the interpretations differ. Here's what I would do:
1) Load the Armada approximately as it would be loaded for camping, including having the WDH installed in the receiver.
2) With the Armada unhitched from the TT, turn the ignition ON and allow the Armada to raise its rear to the pre-set height.
3) Measure the front wheel well height. This is the reference height.
4) With the ignition still ON, retract the tongue jack to lower the coupler onto the ball.
5) Allow the Armada to raise its rear back up to the pre-set height.
6) Snap up the WDH chains using the "cheater" pipe. Lift the tongue with the tongue jack if necessary, and then retract the jack.
7) Check the front wheel well height. If it is more than 1/2" above the reference height from step 3), increase the WD chain tension by decreasing the number of links under tension and/or increasing the rearward tilt of the hitch head. If the front height is less than the reference height, decrease the WD chain tension by increasing the number of links under tension.
Your goal should be to have the front of the Armada at, or slightly above, the reference height with the air "leveling" system activated and with the WDH engaged. You should not attempt to use the WDH to control the height of the rear of the Armada. The air "leveling" system will keep the rear at the pre-set height.
BigSur2 wrote: You guys are losing me. I hook my breakaway throught he same hole as my safety chains on the receiving side of the hitch. That's not recommended? If so, why?
If your hitch breaks away from your tv your tt will still come to a stop
Isn't that the point? I must be missing something here, and I apologize if I am. We all know that the breakaway will apply the TT breaks if the line is pulled out, i.e. if the truck and TT separate from each other, the TT will stop. With that said, how would attaching the end of the cable to the hitch on the truck side cause any problems?
These pics make me upset. The dealer set it up like that? Yikes! Go get your owners manual and set it up correct yourself from scratch. A couple items I see right away... the L bracket location vertically and horizontally need correction, and as you said the parallel bars with the tongue need adjustment.
Manufactures write installation instruction for a reason, I wish dealers would read them too.
Good luck!
2010 Ford F-150 XLT SC
2012 Coachman Catalina 30BHS
Prodigy P-2 Brake Controller
Equalizer WD Hitch
Family Man!
BigSur2 wrote: You guys are losing me. I hook my breakaway throught he same hole as my safety chains on the receiving side of the hitch. That's not recommended? If so, why?
If your hitch breaks away from your tv your tt will still come to a stop
Isn't that the point? I must be missing something here, and I apologize if I am. We all know that the breakaway will apply the TT breaks if the line is pulled out, i.e. if the truck and TT separate from each other, the TT will stop. With that said, how would attaching the end of the cable to the hitch on the truck side cause any problems?
Hi Folks,
I'll try to add a few more words to help explain.
There have been truck "receiver" failures and we have seen some of them here on the forum. If you hook the breakaway to the "receiver" chain loops just like you do with the saftey chains, if the receiver breaks off by where it attaches to the truck or the pins box rips out etc, well it rips off and so does the breakaway cable still attached where the saftey chains hooked do. The broken part of the receiver is bouncing down the road with the TT hooked to it and the breakaway may or may not have pulled out in the process. Will it always happen this way? maybe/maybe not.
If you attach the breakaway to the truck independent of the chain loops and totally separate from the receiver, the odds have gone up a little more that the break away cable will yank out when the receiver rips free from the truck.
It is not that hooking up the break away to the chain loop is all bad, it is that hooking it to the truck independent from the chain loops can maybe buy you a step further in protection.
Here is mine
PS. Do not thread the break away cable through saftey chain. That is worse regardless of where it is attached to the truck. Find a way to keep the cable from getting wrapped up in the hitch by holding it to the 7 wires cord.
Hope this helps
John
John & Cindy
2005 Ford F350 Super Duty, 4x4; 6.8L V10 with 4.10
CC, SB, Lariat & FX4 package
21,000 GCWR, 11,000 GVWR
Ford Tow Command
1,700# Reese HP hitch & HP Dual Cam
2 1/2" Towbeast Receiver
2004 Sunline Solaris T310SR
(I wish we were camping!)
BigSur2 wrote: You guys are losing me. I hook my breakaway throught he same hole as my safety chains on the receiving side of the hitch. That's not recommended? If so, why?
If your hitch breaks away from your tv your tt will still come to a stop
Isn't that the point? I must be missing something here, and I apologize if I am. We all know that the breakaway will apply the TT breaks if the line is pulled out, i.e. if the truck and TT separate from each other, the TT will stop. With that said, how would attaching the end of the cable to the hitch on the truck side cause any problems?
This is an old picture and there used to be many more of them but the links to the pictures are broken. This is the best one I could find to show why you need to attach the breakaway cable to the truck and not to the hitch itself. This one did not come completely off the truck, but others have.
Barney
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