- Well Hello everybody!
Yesterday, the FedEx truck showed up
with these four heavy boxes, right here.
And you might ask, what is this?
Well, this is a brand new top of line hitch
that I'm going install on the trailer
and the truck, of course.
It's a ProPride Hitch designed by Jim Hensley.
And I want to thank Sean Woodruff of ProPride
for sending this to me and I wanted also to thank
Jim Forrey for recommending the hitch,
and for recommending me to ProPride.
So, without further ado, we're going to do an unboxing
and then an installation.
And by the way, this hitch is supposed to eliminate
all kinds of sway or instability when you're towing.
So I'm really looking forward to testing this
thoroughly on my upcoming trip out West.
Yes let's do the unboxing.
(upbeat western music)♪ I'm riding, riding riding
Riding in my RV, my RV
wherever I want to be,
you guys I'm free in my RV yeah ♪
- I was going to unbox this yesterday
but it was kind of a rainy day,
so I decided to do it today.
And I'm sorry if the audio is not great,
but it's not (shuffling nosie)
all that feasible to be
wearing my mic while doing this.
Oh this is a heavy one.
I did open this one up yesterday,
but I didn't remove what was inside.
It comes very well pre-packaged here,
like almost sealed in this kind of styrofoam material
Oh, check it out!
(rustling packing material)
Here, we've got some heavy duty bolts,
and um
this here,
(heavy grunt)
very heavy duty in your heavy steel.
(rustling packing material)
Here we go.
Yeah, this is the big (mumble).
( grunt rustling materials)
It's very, very heavy.
(rustling materials)
Yeah, this is the main, main anti-sway hitch unit here
Oops, almost cut my finger there.
Now I think this stuff will live permanently
on the trailer.
Let's see what we've got here,
(Rustling package materials)
Okay let me show you here we got a bunch of stuff
I'm not gonna take it all out right now.
(rustling package materials)
Alright here are the all important instructions
of course.
And these are the sway bars, I guess,
it does come with some tools here, but I'm gonna
read up on this, of course I'm gonna watch a
couple of YouTube videos and I'll get
back to you guys.
Okay I'm sorry I started without you
I removed all the old hardware from my
trailer frame here and the propane tanks
and I'm gonna get rid of this rust and repaint a little bit
of it as they recommend in the instructions
for the ProPride hitch,
and then we're gonna start the assembly, it should be fun.
You will notice that I also removed my battery
and the battery box to make room and the first
step is to install the weight distribution jacks
they get attached to the frame with some U bolts.
According to the instructions you're not supposed
to make them to tight or you will bend the U bolts.
It looks like I'm gonna have to
remove the propane tray here for our next step,
so let's do that.
Yes according to the instructions most of
the time you will have to remove the
propane tray in order to install
the frame bracket, it's very important to get
this part right because that's what will hold
the hitch yolk later.
There's another set of U bolts that will go
under the propane tray which will hold the frame
bracket in place.
Measure once, twice as many times as necessary to
get it right.
So I have to remove my propane tray temporarily
to install this U bolt here
for this bar
and I forgot to show you this step which was
assembling this part.
We then insert the main hitch unit into the
receiver and I know it looks kind of low
more about that later I actually get to raise it
a little bit before the final installation.
(outside noise)
The next step is to (mumble) remove the
hitch cover so let's do that,
here we go.
Next step, I'm going to grease my ball
(outside noise)
Next we're going to back up the truck and
hitch up like you would with a traditional hitch.
Well, yeah, what's missing here?
I will have to reinstall my battery in order to
use my electric jack right!
(uptempo music)
( engine running)
- Moment of truth it is time to hitch up for the
first time, and at first, I'll admit it it can be
a little tricky until you get the hang of it
you'll have to play with the height and the angle
by lowering or raising your jacks.
Not quit there, hmm.
Now I got it!
And if you noticed as per Sean's instructions
I did raise the receiver a little bit as I said
so it doesn't sit so close to the ground.
Well I would say so far so good, look how it looks
actually let me remove
(dragging noise)
this from here,
I mean it's low clearance but
it's not terrible and in here it looks worse than
it really is in real life because my driveway
is not entirely level.
So I'm gonna lengthen the chains and I'm gonna
take it for ride.
I think we're ready to take it to a level place
for a quick spin here.
This is going to be our first tow here with
the ProPride hitch let's see how this works.
I was gonna put the GoPro on the roof but for this
particular tow we're gonna keep it simple.
Let's see how this does.
(car blinkers)
I forgot to put my towing mirrors but for this
little tow I don't thinks it's gonna
be necessary.
(car blinkers)
It looks pretty good back there.
Okay here we are I took it to a fairly level
parking lot here it should be pretty level.
The only thing I noticed in my chains I may
have to remove one link, yes my measure is that
the bathroom door doesn't close by itself
and if the bathroom door doesn't close by itself
it is fairly level that's sometimes more accurate
than the actual level.
Here we are,
I do have only about 5 inches of clearance
down here I don't know if that's toO low.
Alright let's continue I'm not gonna be
able to test the actually anti sway features
of the hitch until next weekend which I'm going
to head on the road, this is like test number one
to make sure that I hooked up everything correctly,
tow number two coming up next week, I mean for you
guys it's right now but for me it's next week.
(snaps fingers)
okay allow me to interject here from the future
actually, well not really, from the present
this video has been actually two months, a little
over two months in the making.
I've been testing, traveling, towing with the
ProPride hitch I don't know how many thousands of miles
I've gone to California and now I'm on my way back
to Florida but I'm like smack in the middle of the
country I'm in Oklahoma City as I record this.
I just realized I was editing the video and I just
realized I haven't explained the concept of how
the ProPride hitch works and how it so effective
and it is quit effective at preventing hitch.
The ProPride three Ps stands for
Pivot, Point, Projection.
And I mean I'm not an expert but roughly this is
your tow vehicle this is your trailer and the
pivot point is where your ball is and when
you turn you know your trailer follows you behind
as it pivots but then when you get a gust of wind
it pivots at the same point or where a semi truck
goes right next to you it makes it pivot as well
and most conventional hitches what they do they
use a friction device like a sway control bar
or an anti sway bar and it prevents it a little bit
it makes it tougher for it sway to use that
pivot point to sway, but if you get to strong winds
or you know that kind of instability, it's happened
to me many times I've had to slow down to 40, 30
miles an hour it becomes really a white knuckle
drive when you get a gust of wind and your trailer
behind you goes like whoa, (laughing)
when that semi truck passes you 80 miles an hour
in Texas.
So what the ProPride hitch does and what I gather
from the video, actually there's a video by
Sean Woodruff of ProPride on YouTube where
he explains it very well this pivot point
what the hitch does it projects it forward
somewhere is the rear axle of your vehicle
so in reality it's not doing this, it's doing this.
Maybe I can explain like this, it's not doing this
but it's doing this basically.
So that prevents, I mean if you get a gust of
50 mile an hour wind you know crosswind your gonna
feel it a little bit but nothing noting compared to
a conventional hitch so it's made for a much more
pleasant drive and let me tell you I've driven,
I'm gonna calculate it but it's been probably
7,000 miles that I've driven on this trip and
the only thing you saw it the only possible
issue that I've had is that low clearance and
that's the thing this trailer the early version
of the micro minis by Winnebago
they made them really really low clearance it's a way
of saving (mumble) I don't know what it was,
the newer ones are at least four or five inches
higher and that's the thing when I showed it to
Sean from ProPride he said "well yeah it's kind of low"
and I'm one inch lower that the Airstreams
couple of inches actually lower than the Airstream
and the Airstream are like notorious for being low
so that's the thing it hasn't been an issue,
I've bottomed out a couple of times at those
gas stations where you exit the gas station
and it has like a bump you know and then you
hear a thud hit the asphalt for a second.
And also (mumbling) but you haven't seen that video.
But I was at the RTR and I drove through some
pretty rough roads out in the Arizona desert
and the road coming to the RTR there was a big
wash that went down and up and I did bottom out
once coming out of that especially when I came out
which the wash had already been worn out by
so many trucks and RVs going in and out
especially after it rained, that was the only
couple of times it happened two, three maybe four
times I think in the whole trip in the whole
six weeks that I've been traveling.
The point is if you have a normal height trailer
it shouldn't be an issue.
Anyway let's go back now to our regularly scheduled
program here, where were we, oh we were going to
Lake Okeechobee.
Well hello everybody, on the road again today
we are going to Okeechobee, Florida.
One of main purposes of this road trip it's like a
shut down cruise before our long road trip to the west.
I want to test out my new GPS system here
I want to test our new hitch we got the ProPride
hitch and so far so good.
(country music)
- By the way the hitch worked really well on this
short trip to Okeechobee, Florida
but where I really put it to the test was
in my two month long cross country road trip
all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
Probably if there was ever a time to test the
ProPride hitch is today we've got very strong winds
and well it is shaking a little bit,
it's noting compared to the tossing around that I would be
getting with my regular hitch you know the old one
so so far so good!
( GPS giving directions)
I've driven 1,000 miles more or less with the hitch
with the ProPride hitch and so far so good
it works as advertised I mean it's been windy today
and while the wind did toss me around a little
bit on the interstate it wasn't nearly as bad
as I've experienced before so cudos.
And now I'm going to show you how easy it is
to unhitch the ProPride hitch.
First thing we have to do is choke the wheels
okay I'm going to read the instructions here
real quick so I don't make any mistakes first
we're going to lower tongue jack until we take
the load off the hitch.
Well yeah unhook the chains and it does take
a little bit of trail and error at the beginning
but in the end I figured out that if you lowered
the weight distribution jacks first it is kind of
easier to determine whether the load is off the
hitch, that's what worked for me anyways.
And that's it that's how simple it is to unhitch
with the ProPride hitch, of course I will
continue testing this hitch extensively and I'll
let you know how it goes along the way.
And for now if your interested in this item
just follow the link in the description of the
video and it'll take you to the ProPride website
and you can find all kinds of information about
it and the CEO Sean he's very responsive and he'll
answer any questions, any further questions
you may have.
(mumbling) It's a Jim Hensley design and it's
kind of an improvement if you will on the original
Hensely design since you don't have to drill holes
into the frame of the trailer
and the jacks are easier to operate
and it has better paint coating
and there's a bunch of other improvements that
they have made to the original Hensley hitch
so there you go.
Until next time thank you so much for watching
and see you, on the road.
(uptempo music)
- Over the past two months I have traveled
cross country over 5,000 miles towing with the
ProPride hitch and I haven't had any issues
whatsoever when it comes to swaying either
in windy situations or when a large semi truck
passes you at high speed.
Hitching and unhitching is a much cleaner and
faster operation as well and I intend to continue
using it the foreseeable future.
Only con's, well if you have an unusually low
trailer like mine clearance might be an issue
not a deal breaker but something to keep in mind.
Also, hitching up on an angle can be tricky,
there is a learning curve like with everything
but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Let me tell you know I don't know if I could
go back to regular hitch after not having
to worry about crosswinds and semi trucks on the
highway.
Once again I want to thank ProPride for providing
the hitch and if you want to get one for yourself
follow the link in the video description or
just go to ProPridehitch.com
(uptempo music)