Wrenching

Last week I did a little back yard cleanup. There were some logs to cut up into firewood length, then split for firewood. That went fine. I have a nice gas powered logsplitter which I rolled down to the backyard using a trailer dolly placed under the coupler. But I couldn't get it back uphill to the garage...too heavy. Luckily, a neighbor with a pickup truck came by and he pulled it up for me.

See, last year I had two vehicles, with trailer hitches...both died. One went to a junk yard and the other was donated to the Kidney Foundation. That left me with a minivan with no trailer hitch, and the other Jeep that HAS a trailer hitch that can't be used. Why can't it be used? Because the spare tire mounted on the back of the Jeep renders the hitch ball inaccessible. Weird, but true!

I have a need to pull the logsplitter or a trailer from time to time, so it would be nice to have a useable trailer hitch. The one on the Jeep has a FIXED ball mount. I really like "receiver" type hitches so you can easily slide in a "mount" that has the hitch ball of a desired size. I still have 3 mounts with 3 different size balls...just no receiver hitch.

A new receiver hitch for that old Jeep would cost upwards of $170. But I found a receiver TUBE ($20) that is designed to be welded to farm equipment. It looks like it could easily be welded to the draw bar of the current hitch, so I bought that. In order to get it welded (hopefully only about $50) I need to take either the hitch or the drawbar to a welder. I carefully measured and clamped the receiver tube in place on the draw bar so that the spare tire would not interfere. Then I decided to remove the draw bar to take it to the welder (ligher and not as unwieldy as the entire hitch).

The nuts and bolts are rusty and are holding very well. To remove the fixed ball so that I could clamp the tube in place, I had to use a torch to heat the nut. Then with a pipe wrench and an adjustable wrench I was able to take that off. It took a lot of wrenching. Then there are 4 bolts holding the drawbar on. With heat and persuasion I got one off. Moved to the next one and instead of wrenching IT off I ended up wrenching my BACK. I was in pain, but luckily had some Doan's pills. Took those and rested for a few hours and am much better now.

So now it's chemical persuasion time. I spray the remaining bolts with "PB Blaster" and tap them in the hope that rust adhesion breaks free. This needs to be repeated a couple times a day. Sooner or later the bolts should come off. Since I'm not in a hurry I can do this at a leisurely pace. Don't want to get hurt again.