By Russ and Tiña De Maris
A new hitch ball is often bright, shiny and chromed. But many RVers have been much dismayed, on lifting the hitch coupler off the new ball after the first use, that the chrome is scratched and scarred. What happened? Metal-to-metal contact can scrape off that shiny chrome and things are never the same.
Is scraped-up chrome the only issue here?
One RVer, who for years declined to grease his hitch ball, found—much to his chagrin and his finances—that the ungreased condition lead to such wearing of the trailer coupler that it had to be replaced. Not only was the coupler expensive, but he had to hire the work out to a welder, with a considerable amount of cash out the window. He now describes himself as a “greaser,” to prevent such issues in the future.
On the other hand, you’ll find some RVers who disdain greasing hitch balls because, they contend, the grease attracts dirt and the dirt acts as a sort of sandpaper, chewing away at the hitch ball and the coupler.
What’s to be done?
“Definitely grease,” says a technical representative from PullRite Systems, a hitch manufacturer. In the company’s mind, a lubricated ball will allow for easier twisting and turning and will discourage corrosion and damage.
Ah, but what about “grease attracts dirt”? True enough, but there are a couple of schools of thought on this. One says to simply grease your hitch ball, use it, then just prior to the next use, wipe it off with a rag and give it a new coat of grease. In the process, the dirt is (hopefully) wiped away.
In this same vein, many RVers recommend not only putting a cover over the top of the hitch ball when not in use—thus keeping the dirt away—but also preventing a mess when someone brushes up against the ball. These same proponents also recommend covering the trailer coupler with a plastic bag when unhitched, keeping the dirt at bay.
What’s an alternative to grease?
The alternative to “grease attracts dirt” is to lubricate the ball with a dry graphite lubricant which, itself, doesn’t attract dirt.
A small tube of graphite powder such as “Tube-O-Lube” (on Amazon) stores easily and can be coated onto the hitch ball quickly before use. If you prefer something that will stick around a little longer, try something like B’laster Industrial Graphite Dry Lubricant, also sold on Amazon. It’s a spray with an ingredient that makes the graphite cling to the sprayed surfaces more readily than just loose graphite powder.
You’ll probably have to clean any existing grease out of the coupler before you begin using graphite or else you’ll have a mess of graphite and old grease on your shiny new hitch ball.
One other note: Some pundits in the recreational boating field will warn you NOT to use graphite lube on a BOAT trailer hitch ball. They say (correctly) that it’s an electrical conductor, and could set up real electrolysis problems. We don’t know—we’re just RV people!
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RVDT2769
Wiping the ball clean will remove the grit from the ball. However, there is still dirty grease in the coupler.
Wiping the inside of the coupler will remove a good deal of the contaminated grease. Using a spray de-greaser (engine cleaner and rinsing) every so often helps even more.
The ball does not need to be coated with a thick layer of grease. The more grease, the more dirt it will hold.
I’m thinking back 60 or 70 years when you would never, at least in my foggy memory, greased the trailer ball. It needed to be “clean” so that your trailer lights had a ground. We only towed a small trailer to and from the lake. I’m not even sure the trailer had any lights if you could see the taillights of the towing vehicle from a short distance behind. Yup, things do change.
Relying on the trailer ball for the ground is just wrong. That would cause a very intermittent and high resistance connection.
Even the 4 and 5 pin connectors have a ground wire.
The trailer ball and coupler is not ‘tight’. There is fore and aft and side to side movement.
I pull a small camping trailer behind my motor cycle and have never greased the ball.
It looks brand new, but I am only pulling about 500 lbs and 45lb tongue weight, not thousands and hundreds.
Any proper electrical connection will have a ground conductor and the boating crowd is wrong. I do remember back in the old days seeing trailers with their lights flashing as the coupler bounced on the ball.