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Trailer Receiver Extesion

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john hunter
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2002-11-22          45299

My trailer hitch receiver is located 16 inches from the rear end of my Ford flatbed truck. In other words, I must extend the receiver 16 inches from under the truck so I can connect my trailer. How far can I extend the receiver and maintain the towing capacity. The towing capacity is 8600 pounds.

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Trailer Receiver Extesion

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Jeff Earthwerks Unli
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2002-11-24          45337

I'm not sure the "towing capacity" of the truck would change--what will change is the "load capacity" of the hitch itself. The futher you place the hitch ball from the end of the receiver, the more it becomes a giant lever--like a big breaker-bar for removing a stuck bolt the longer the better, but not in this case. If you look at the receiver opening (the mouth) it has a double-wall for about the first 1"--that keeps the side walls of the tube from splitting, which is what will happen if you over load the receiver either by overloading "tongue weight" or by extending it. If you do have to extend it, it will have to be supported one way or another. And be careful about welding on it as that could stress the material and cause cracking. If you want fabricate the extension yourself use DOM (drawn-over-mandrel) seamless tubing as opposed to regular "welded tube" which can allow the seam weld to fail. Better yet, just buy a bar of solid steel. Here in Detroit new steel is about 40 cents a pound. Check with a machine shop, they might be able to fab it. Parting thought: A few years ago I saw a roll-back, single car, hauler. He had an extension that had to be at least 6 feet long to which he installed a homemade dolly of sorts for towing a second car by its front wheels. The end of the extension was bouncing a full 18" up and down--and so was the car! ....

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