For the last tournament we fished I towed the ProCraft out to the lake
with my Jeep. Its within the tow capacity (just barely), but I would
rather use my truck. The AC wasn’t working in the truck, and its
warming up here in Arizona. Anyway, the Jeep towed it just fine, except
the hitch sagged. (I fixed the truck AC the other day)

Before I installed the off road bumper on the back I had installed a
hitch that clamps around and is bolted through the rear cross member.
It worked fine, but I don’t recall towing anything heavy with it. The
new rear off road bumper came with a hitch. It bolted to the rear cross
member as well as the frame rails so I figured it would be stronger.
Maybe in direct pulling, but as I said, “it sagged.” The way it was it
twisted on the cross member, and pulled the bumper tabs that go into the
frame rails down to the limit of the bolt slots. When we went to load
the boat I noticed one of the trailer axles wasn’t even touching the
ground. Oops.

I didn’t want to get rid of the off road bumper, so grinder, recipro
saw, and torch to the rescue.

I have to say a couple things about that. Without removing the bumper
from the Jeep it took all three of those tools to cut the hitch off the
bumper after unbolting it from the cross member. (It doesn’t clamp
around the cross member like the old hitch.) The DeWalt recipro saw is
a beast. It’s not a Milwaukee Super Sawzall (I have one of those
somewhere), but its pretty impressive. I don’t just mean “for a
cordless” either. The DeWalt cordless angle grinder almost got put away
in favor of a corded grinder, but then I tried a bigger capacity
battery, and its not to bad. Its not a corded grinder, but its not bad.
Far superior to (and more expensive than) the Harbor Freight Bauer
cordless grinder.

I had to cut away a part of the bumper too, but it was really not that
big of a deal. Did I say that DeWalt recipro saw was a beast? I’ll
come back later and clean it up a little later maybe, but it doesn’t
look that bad unless you get right up next to it.

The old hitch got reinstalled clamped around the cross member. It
sticks out less so it will have less force to lever it down, but I think
with the way it mounts its not going to twist down within the load
rating of the Jeep anyway.

Images at link:
https://www.yumabassman.com/2024/03/21/i-cut-the-hitch-off-my-jeep/

I am going to have to reach under the bumper now to clip on the safety
chains, but I am okay with that. The whole installation looks better in
my opinion.

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Bob La Londe
CNC Molds N Stuff

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