Adding a hitch?

[MSN Member]

From: 67imp
Sent: 6/26/2008

73 Indian , looking to add a real hitch to it. right now it just has a homemade welded flat bar stock hitch on the rear bumper. I do not nor will I trust it to old a small boat trailer.
Where can someone get a real hitch? I see that some of the 73 Indians came with a hitch from the factory , were they bumper mounts or real chassis mounted.

lumpy

[denisondc]

Sent: 6/26/2008

I don't think I ever saw two alike. The one in my driveway in Alexandria is welded onto the original rear bumper - just a 3/8" thick triangular plate welded horizontally onto the vertical part of the rear bumper - and big enough for a ball to be situated at the widest part of the triangle. It looks like it could pull several tons reliably.
My other Winnie also came with a heavy rear bumper, (~100 lbs) which I discarded. I made up a replacement from 4" square tubing (~30 lbs). For a hitch I bought a common class-III receiver hitch by one of the brand name makers, with the expectation that I would need to modify it.

The last 3 or 4 feet of the frame (on both of my D22 WInnies) is a pair of channel irons, about 5" x 1.5" that is butt-welded to the ends of the Dodge frame rails with a small flitch plate for strength. A frame extension. To let me attach the hitch to these, I welded the long side of 18" by 2" lengths of 3/16" flat stock to the lower inner side of the frame extensions (right at the rearmost part), and drilled 1/2" holes in this to bolt the hitch up to; 8 of them. I wanted the hitch to be removable. I also had to modify the hitch itself to be the correct width; more welding.
It may be possible to find a class-III hitch that has its sides the correct width apart to fit the frame extensions exactly, but I didn't want to drill any holes in the bottom flange of the frame; hence my welding a piece onto it.

And that frame extension 'butt weld' is probably the reason a little placard inside the tail end compartment would give you a 'tongue wt' limit of 200 or 300 lbs. I have pulled cars behind our Winnie for thousands of miles, on a tow dolly or with a tow bar; but I elected not to try towing my car hauler trailer with the Winny - since that trailer's tongue weight with a heavy car aboard can be close to 1000 lbs, not counting highway bumps. It would put a LOT of strain on that rusty weld.

I have seen a Winnie whose frame extension weld cracked and let the last 3 or 4 feet of frame droop down onto the highway. It had one of those 'back porches' built onto it, and they must have overloaded it.

[Lefty]

Sent: 6/27/2008

Our Chieftain (D-27) came with a factory mounted receiver hitch that is welded to the rear frame. It is rated at 500lb tongue weight/5,000lbs trailer weight.
However, I would prefer not to ever try to load that much weight on it. The hitch itself would never bend or break... It's the rear frame that would be my concern as Denison stated. I have used it with a small car (1985 Toyota Tercel Wagon) and also with out 24' Pontoon boat. Neither would weigh more than maybe 2,500lbs.

[bluebird]

Sent: 6/29/2008

I agree with denisondo. It's not just winnys. almost every mh I've seen do this. I have always modified the frame where the factory added the extension. I didn't on my first one and the frame came apart where they added . That was a mess. It took me a week to fix it. Had to cut holes in the floor to clean up there mess. They only stitch welded the top of the frame and it broke. Probably could have done it right at the factory in another 1/2 hour. If you're going to pull a trailer with much tongue weight do it first, it's much harder to fix it after you break it. I box the frame 2 ft on each side of the splice, and use an equalizer type hitch.

Chuck

[MSN Member]

From: StoneCreekNM
Sent: 7/9/2008

This is good information.. Mine came with the receiver type hitch and I do camping with my horses. I have a 16 foot stock trailer that's about 2500 pounds, with a horse or two added it's 4500 pounds. I will have to double check and look into the weld on it.. what a disaster it would be if it broke while hauling my horses. YIKES