I see a lot of questions about bars and lube on here over the years, so I thought I'd post my findings today.
We came back from a weekend at the local state parks 10 miles down the road. Since it was a short trip home and there was dirt on my bar trunnions and sockets (Reese Dual Cam trunnion hitch, 1200 lbs), I just wiped them clean with a rag and installed them without any lube. This is the first time in almost five years I haven't run grease on these contact points and they are polished to a smooth finish.
What I found was that my hitch was creeking and popping at every little turn, when previously they were virtually silent because of my fastidious lubrication. I still had a dab of Vasoline remaining on my cam seats, so I know the noise was coming from the trunnion pins and sockets.
The point is folks, these are very high pressure contact points and today I proved that even with seated-in, polished parts, they still made noise. Normally my hitch is virtually silent in slow turns and backing. Today it sounded like...well...most other trailers in the park! Lesson learned. Lube is our friend. Put it to work. If you want quiet operation and longevity, grease'em.
"It`s not important that you know all the answers, it`s only important to know where to get all the answers" Arone Kleamyck
"...An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Sunset Creek 298 BH
They say not to lube the friction type bars because they operate on friction. Reese indicates in the instructions to lubricate the dual cam trunion bars with some lubricant at the moving points. When I disconnect I wipe the grease off before I store the trunion bars in my tool box. I re-lubricate when I hook up again. I am getting less wear by lubricating the trunion bars.
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