I never had a Hensley Arrow hitch and not many of them were around when I got the Pull Rite hitch for my 87 Ford van. The Pull rite hitch was taken off the Van when I bought the Excursion and I fabricated some brackets to get it to fit the 4X4 Excursion. I had Pull Rite send me some information on the Excursions hitches and the pictures they had showed the hitch almost on the ground and they said it will not fit a 2WD Excursion, I could see why after looking at the pictures. With the brackets I made it's sits up nice and high and I retained the stock trailer hitch. As far as towing with it you feel no sway or push from the trucks passing or should I say the ones I am passing, LOL
. It takes some getting use to as the trailer really cuts to the inside when tuning so you need to make some really wide turns but get to scare the crap out of the people sitting at the light when you cut it back in at the last second.
I have turned my 31 foot travel trailer around in a 2 lane road with this hitch. The tires on the trailer don't like it too much and there was some pretty strange looking skid marks left in the road by the inside trailer tires. It really turns some heads when I pull a maneuver like that.
The biggest thing I don't like about it is when you want to move the trailer over to one side or the other you need to pull up a lot further than you would have to with a more normal type hitch. In some camp grounds this can be a real PITA.
If I remember correctly I bought it brand new in 1992 for $550 which is a deal for what they are going for now.
:jerk:
Rancho makes a steering stabilizer for the Excursions, the number is RS5412 and they list a high performance one, RS5410, which is the standard one for the Super Duty's. They also list a RS5413 for the 05 Excursions which doesn't fit the 05 Excursions, it fits the 05/06 Super Duty's new front end which the Excursions don't have. The Super Duty's high performance one, RS5406 is around 3 inches longer, bigger diameter and has a larger shaft diameter. I just ground the axle mount slightly, inserted a sleeve in the bushing to get it from 5/8 inch to 12 mm, a washer on the top of the bushing and mounted it to the axle bracket. For the tie rod end all that was done was to slide the mounting bracket over to the drivers side and use a standard 5/8 shock mounting stud to mount it to the bracket. The RS5406 doesn't come with any hardware so you will need to find the sleeve, washer and shock stud. All the original hardware was reused to mount it to the axle and the bracket to the tie rod.
The handling is a lot more precise with fewer steering corrections when on the highway. I don't get any more steering wheel jerking when hitting pot holes or when driving over uneven surfaces.
FMT
