Atwood Industries, Inc.

Atwood Vacuum Machine Company

James W Chambers

Barry C Nudd

A hitch adapted to be mounted in the bed of a pickup truck for towing a trailer having a coupling mechanism and safety chains. The hitch includes a ball adapted to releasably interlock with the coupling mechanism. The ball has an upright position for engaging the coupling mechanism and a stowed position. The hitch further includes vertically oriented rings for engaging the safety chain. The rings are slidably located in horizontal slots in the hitch and are slidably retained in the slots by pins located transversely with respect to the slots. The rings are movable upwardly from stowed positions for engagement with the safety chains. The rings automatically drop to the stowed positions by virtue of gravity acting on the rings after the safety chains have been disengaged from the rings. The stowed positions of the ball and the rings insure that the bed of the pickup is substantially unobstructed by the presence of the hitch when the hitch is not in use.

Folding ball hitch with safety chain anchor

Trailer jack housing

A jack for lifting a camper from the bed of a pick-up truck includes a ram with a foot which is normally disposed in a retracted position spaced above the ground to provide clearance during travel of the truck. After the foot has been lowered into contact with the ground, a hand crank is turned and rotates a ball screw which coacts with a ball nut to cause the ram to lift the camper from the truck. By releasing a latch, the retracted foot may be lowered quickly into contact with the ground without turning the crank and simply by stepping on and pushing downwardly against the foot to effect turning of the ball screw.

Quick-to-ground camper jack

A jack is mounted on a trailer tongue by a swivel connection to pivot between a vertically disposed active position and a horizontally disposed stowed position. The swivel connection includes a spacer sandwiched between a bracket on the tongue of the trailer and a bracket on the housing of the jack and rotatably received in a hole in the tongue bracket. The spacer serves to hold the two brackets out of contact with one another. A bolt extends through the housing bracket and the spacer with a non-rotatable fit and causes the housing bracket and the spacer to turn in unison relative to the tongue bracket. A nut and washer on the inner end of the bolt clamp the brackets together while allowing the housing bracket to pivot relative to the tongue bracket. The tongue bracket may either be clamped to the tongue by bolts or may be bolted to still another bracket which is welded to the tongue.

Swivel jack for a trailer tongue

Fifth wheel hitch

A fifth wheel hitch is attached releasably to the bed of a pickup truck by brackets which resemble the parts of a swinging door hinge and which are connected by removable pins. The hinge-type brackets with the removable pins enable the hitch to be quickly and easily removed from and re-installed in the truck.

Mounting for fifth wheel hitch

Trailer coupler yoke

A hitch adapted to be installed in the bed of a pickup truck and adapted to interlock with the kingpin of a fifth wheel trailer in order to couple the trailer to the truck. The hitch includes a pivoted latching plate for securing the kingpin, a reciprocating locking bolt for holding the latch in a latched position and a pivoted detent link for holding the locking bolt in an unlocked position when the trailer is uncoupled from the truck. When the trailer is subsequently re-coupled to the truck, the latch automatically trips the detent link to allow the locking bolt to shift automatically to a locked position holding the latch in a latched position.

Fifth wheel hitch pin box

Trailer jack

The ball clamp of a trailer coupler is supported by the coupler body to move back and forth between a clamped position holding a ballhead in the socket of the coupler and a released position permitting the socket to be pulled upwardly off of the ballhead. To hold the ball clamp in a correct angular orientation relative to the ballhead, a cylindrical tube is wedged between the upper side of the ball clamp and an inclined upper wall of the coupler body and is secured rigidly in place by staking metal of the side walls of the body into the end portions of the tube. The ball clamp is held in its clamped position by a pivoted yoke having transversely spaced arms which straddle the coupler body and having transversely spaced ears which straddle a latch. Each arm and each ear are integral with one another along a substantial length of the arm so as to improve the structural strength of the yoke.

Trailer coupler with improved ball clamp holding means and improved yoke

A trailer coupler includes mounting wings which straddle and are welded to the outer sides of the webs of I-beams which form the A-frame tongue of the trailer. A tongue projects rearwardly from the coupler into the space between the webs and is welded to the inner sides of the webs to increase the load-carrying capacity of the coupler.

Growing community of inventors

Rockford, IL, United States of America

James W Chambers