Pintel Towing Hitches

mfrench

Addicted Member
OK,... any help appreciated, as I'm just taking my first look into a Pintel hitch.

Vehicle:
'99 Dodge 2500HD Cummins 4x4 5speed 3/4ton single axle
stock height, which is quite tall. This is going to require a drop mount mounting plate/hitch.

I see quite a spread of sizes of Pintel, raning from low tonnage rating, to quite substantial ton rating.
My mind has me thinkning about landing in the middle, medium range.

Objective:
To be able to rent a dual axle 2 or 3 yard dumping trailer. This might amount to 6k lbs of potential trailer load?

Past problem:
Rental yard does not have a drop down mount plate. To hook up to a straight Pintel mount has two of the trailer wheels off the ground; dangerous, and it looks like spinner rims.
I actually had the trailer try to jack knife me, because only two of the four wheels had any braking applied by the thrust brake. The rental yard assured me that the load of gravel that I was after would weigh the trailer down to cause contact of a lifted wheel pair. Fail.
So, to avoid that near-catastrophe, I'm looking at my own pintel hitch and mount.

please and thanks
 
first lesson already learned; It's Pintle, Mike, not Pintel.

Oops.

On a serious note,...
I see the combination ball/pintle hitch, and, the standard pintle hook.
thoughts?

I've already got numerous standard balls, and don't really need another. But if I'm missing the cool thing,.. LMK.
 
On the mount dimensions, measure receiver height on truck. Stop by rental place and measure hitch height on one of their lowest trailers, when trailer deck is level. Do the math and buy accordingly.

For pintle sizing, I would go one 'notch' higher than your truck's max tow rating. So if there's a 10K and 15K pintle (for example), and your truck is good for 12K, get the 15K parts.

I would stay away from the combo, because if you get a trailer with a gouged-up ring (fairly unlikely thru scratching, but possible for things like weld spatter, etc.) it will damage the ball, which in turn will damage the coupler of everything connected to it.
 
I've used the pintle/ball combo for over 30 years with no issues. The pintle mount has adjusting holes in it, and the balls can be changed to 1 7/8", 2", or 2 5/16".

As far as I'm concerned, it's the only way to go.
 
Uckfay emay! Trailering is scary!!
OK,... yesterday was truck abuse day. I had rented a 3-yard dumper trailer, and, decided to spend the day at the local rock quarry getting a variety of sizes from 6" to 3/4".

The local quarry is used to semi's and rock trucks, not 3/4ton pickups with a rental dump trailer. Their loaders are immense, and, my target was tiny. Accuracy was more important than load size with the 6" and 3" material, as a misguided scoop of that could destroy my pickup. We ended with some FULL loads, and, not exactly to the 2/3 load in front of this point ideal.
/rambling...

So, the quarry has a main artery road up its center, and it is a steep road. On one side is the high wall where they blast material from. The opposite side is out onto the rolling hills, where they have carved out different leveled plateaus for different sizes of material.
The high wall side is kind of sketchy, as it is also the side of the road that is prone to dropping off into the quarry pits that they blast into.
Each plateau has an entrance point, and that entrance apron came off the steep main feeder road, and had its own added pitch.

The 3/4” material was up at the high point of the quarry. So, I hauled up there, and got a FULL load.
I knew damn straight that the feeder road was going to be a bitch to get down with a full trailer, so, I dropped down into 4wd low gear range, and let the motor crawl me down.
The Dodge Cummins 5-speed, in four-low first gear,… maxes out at like 2mph, full redline tach. I was in that creeping mode. It doesn’t move very quickly, but, it will push over whatever is in front of it, at idle.
So, I pull away from the pile, drive across the leveled flats, and get to the apron that angles down onto the steep main road,… just as a water truck ran up the road, washing down dust.
I turn the truck to make the turn down the apron, which is about 45º, followed by another 45º turn onto the main road.
It is at this point where gravity took over, and, the trailer wanted to continue going straight, pushing from what was now a sideways direction to the truck, just as I committed to the second 45º maneuver.
Suddenly, I’m being pushed around from the rear, and the trailer was trying to jack knife me, and I’m not far from one of the quarry pit walls, with a steep drop to the bottom.
Fortunately, I’d had lots of experience in offload drifting, and, dune buggy driving as a kid, and fisherman.
So, I turned into the slide, got my foot off of the brakes, and let the Cummins come to life and got that load back behind us.
The loader driver was following me down the hill, and, at the bottom, came over and congratulated me on the huge power slide save.
I had to pull over to check my pants.
They had MHSA inspectors there that day (mining version of OSHA), and, a civilian truck wreck, falling off of a vertical wall, into a deep pit might not have won them any points for safety.
 
I used a straight loaner pintle hook yesterday, and it worked out great. It turns out the first dumper trailer rental was the smaller two yard version, and, for whatever reason, the tongue angle was far steeper for that trailer.
The trailer I rented yesterday was the larger 3yard trailer, and, the tongue angle worked out far better.

I'm still debating buying a hitch, and, have talked to lots of folks about the combination pintle/ball. Nothing but good words so far.
 
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