Receiver Hitches, what are they used for?

Mounted Drop Ball Hitch

In my many years designing material handling equipment, I have used receiver hitches on a multitude of applications. I have a really good understanding of how they are used, the engineering concepts that govern their use, and plenty of real life experience using them.

When faced with the question “What are receiver hitches used for?” the obvious answer is to attach a coupler to a tow vehicle thereby enabling it to tow a trailer. Do you have a receiver hitch on one of your vehicles? If so, there are many more things that you can do with one besides towing a trailer.

receiver hitch
Receiver Hitch

Whether you call it a receiver hitch, a hitch receiver or a receiver tube, read the rest of the below article, to learn some things that you can do with your vehicle’s receiver hitch.

Receiver Hitches come in various sizes and capacities. Designed to handle shank sizes of 1-1/4″, 2″, 2-1/2″ and 3″. Classified in Class 1 through Class 5 having capacities from 2,000 lbs to above 20,000 lbs.

Using your Receiver Hitch for towing.

If you have a boat, a four wheeler, a camper, a landscaping operation, race cars, or a vast array of other hobbies or business needs, chances are you tow a trailer. Towing a trailer is an efficient way of getting materials or equipment from one place to another.

Towing requires a hitch to be mounted to your car, truck, suv or other type of vehicle in order to enable it to tow things. Trailers also come with many different sizes and types of couplers. Using a receiver hitch on your vehicle increases the versatility of your vehicle by allowing you to quickly and effortlessly change out couplers.

Whether you need a pintle hitch, ball hitch, clevis hitch to tow tow your trailer, you can easily switch them out. If you have one trailer that needs a 2″ ball at 18″ above the ground, and another trailer that needs a 2-5/16″ ball at 26″ above the ground, you can have a hitch setup for each.

Having a receiver hitch on your vehicle gives you great versatility when it comes to towing, and so much more. Let’s look at some of the other things that you can do with your receiver hitch.

Using your Receiver Hitch for attaching a cargo carrier.

With a hitch mounted cargo carrier you can convert your receiver hitch to an extension of your truck bed, trunk or cargo area of your vehicle.

Cargo carriers can come in the form of an expanded metal and tubular platform frame with short rails to help retain load. Cargo carriers can span the majority of the vehicle’s width but generally extend only a short distance from the vehicle. This is because the further the platform sticks away from the vehicle, the more stress is put on the receiver hitch. Generally speaking a typical cargo carrier platform will have a capacity of about 500 lbs, have a width of 48″ – 72″ and a depth of 20″-24″. These types of cargo carriers go for about $100 to $250.

Some cargo carriers can come with fold down ramps that allow a mobility device like a wheelchair or a scooter to be loaded (see picture to right). These types of carriers can also be used to load lawnmowers, snow blowers, rototillers and cultivators. These types of cargo carriers with ramps typically go for $200 to $400.

Other cargo carriers are enclosed to form a large chest that is both water-proof and wind-proof. These types of cargo carriers are handy when you need to haul fragile materials that would not survive driving down the highway at 75 miles per hour, or a pop up thunderstorm that catches you by surprise.

Using your Receiver Hitch to haul bicycles.

Do you have a cross-over SUV or a car with a receiver hitch? Do you enjoy mountain biking in the outdoors? Let me use the below real world example to show how quick thinking and a receiver hitch saved the day.

Brandi, a fit and beautiful runner, took up biking as a way to keep her powerful sweeping legs in shape while reducing the excessive wear and tear on her knees. She also saw it is an opportunity to bond with the family. So she hopped on the internet, and planned the perfect mountain biking getaway for the family. On the night before the trip, she all of a sudden realized that the truck was in the shop, and she had no way of hauling the four bikes, almost 100 miles to their destination.

After a short brainstorming session, she realized that her cross-over had a receiver hitch. And she remembered seeing people hauling bikes on a hitch mounted bike rack. So first thing in the morning she went to the local Bike Store, and the nice young man working there helped her pick out the Yakima Ridge Back bike rack (pictured) that carries 4 bikes, and fits her receiver hitch. He also addressed her concerns about opening the hatchback, because this rack also tilts away to give her access. Her concern with someone stealing the bikes was also solved because this rack also has a keyed lock. Her planned mountain biking trip was saved due to her quick thinking and her cars receiver hitch.

Using your Receiver Hitch for Tailgating.

When you head to your favorite team’s stadium early to tailgate, it helps if you have a truck in order to bring your grill along. There is just something about hanging out on a cool crisp morning, with 30,000 of your closest friends having a cold beer and hot cheeseburger fresh off the grill. It doesn’t get much better than that.

But what happens if you don’t have a truck to bring the grill in. No one wants to put a hot grill in their car. Nor do they want to make a greasy mess in their vehicle’s interior. So, then what is a guy to do?

Well, if you have a vehicle with a receiver hitch, then I have the perfect solution for you. A gas grill that mounts to your vehicle’s receiver hitch using swivel arms. The arms allow it to be moved away from the vehicle when cooking, or rotated out of the way in order to give you access to the trunk, tailgate or hatchback.

Using your Receiver Hitch to mount a jib crane.

If you are like me, occasionally you find yourself needing to get an item into your truck that it is so heavy, that it is just borderline impossible. The heaviest item that I can successfully get into, and out of my truck alone, is a riding mower. At about 350 lbs, and only lifting part of it at a time, it is still pushing it.

I remember this one time about 10 years ago I was visiting my mom in Kentucky. While I was down there, I came across a large rock that I wanted for landscaping. It was about four foot tall, by two foot wide, by a foot thick. It was a sandstone bolder that was generally smooth and tapered, an most likely was over 1,000 lbs. For those that know me, know how much I like rocks, and once I decide I want one, I usually get it.

Big Rock vs Tailgate

My plan, was to flip it up a hill of other rocks high enough that I could back my truck underneath it and use gravity to help me flip it into the truck bed. I carefully positioned smaller rocks using them to get leverage and to brace the bolder from rolling down the hill. Slowly, and surely I flipped the boulder inch by inch up the hill. All of a sudden, I realized that I finally have the boulder positioned higher than my tailgate.

With utter excitement, I jumped into the truck, backed it up towards the hill, and then realized, I had about a 2 foot gap between the rock of my dreams, and the tailgate. I set the parking brake, and pondered my predicament for a minute. So my new plan was to rotate the rock around and get it into position so that I could flip the rock longways allowing the 4 foot length to bridge that 2 foot gap. Seemed like a solid idea.

That was until the rock landed on the tailgate with a loud crash and the truck lunged forward about a foot and a half. The bottom of the rock slid back down the hill. I could see the tailgate bent in a slight u shape. All of a sudden, I hear an outburst of laughter from a nearby pile of rocks. My Stepdad and my son were sitting there, cracking up at me, and making jokes. Smitty, made me pause for a moment, snap a picture, because he wanted to make sure my mom got to see what I had been up to.

To this day, that is one of the few rocks that got away. To this day, I can look at my tailgate and see the damage that the boulder inflicted on my tailgate and truck bed. That damage far exceeded what I would have spent on a receiver mounted crane (like pictured above) that would have lifted that rock in a matter of minutes and placed it carefully in my truck bed for transport back to the house.

Using your Receiver Hitch to mount a vise

For all of the tradesmen that work out of their trucks, there is not a tool that is much more useful and versatile as a vice.

This particular vice has a bracket that can be mounted on a workbench. The vice can easily be removed from the workbench and installed into the receiver hitch by removal and installation of the hitch pin.

The vise is light weight, but ruggedly built out of ductile iron and steel. 6″ wide jaws with a 5-3/4″ throat. The vice is equipped with a patented 360 degree locking handle and a weatherproof finish.

Using your Receiver Hitch to support long materials.

While my truck’s short bed looks sporty, it sometimes presents a problem when I have to haul materials 10′ or longer. That is the threshold where the materials in my truck bed may begin to shift and tilt when I hit bumps or accelerate from a stop.

An adjustable tailgate extender like this one from MaxxHaul has a 350 capacity and can extend more than 4 feet away from the receiver’s hitch pin.

Its width to 48″ to allow you to carry full sheets of plywood or drywall.

This type of tailgate extender is great for hauling ladders, canoes, lumber, carpet, rugs, drainage tile, pipes and so much more.

More Crap you can use your Receiver Hitch for.

While we have discussed a bunch of things that your receiver hitch can be used for, there are still many more things that we did not discuss. The products that I highlighted in this article, I believe to be well thought out items that will be useful to the consumer. There are also crappy ideas that are gimmicks, and in the end, do not provide much value.

And then there is their is the Bumper Dumper, which is literally a “Crappy” idea, but also one of the good ones. If you have ever been far away from civilization, and hear nature’s call, you know what I mean.

The bumper dumper is a patented protected, one of a kind product that can be bought through the amazon link to the right, or directly from the official bumper dumper website – https://bumperdumper.com/

Conclusion

So, as you can tell, besides towing trailers, there are so many things that you can use your receiver hitch for. From grilling, to lifting items in your truck. Carrying bikes, lawnmowers, wheel chairs and so on. The list goes on and on.

John Yater

My name is John Yater, owner of materialhandlinginsider and Engineer of Material Handling Equipment. I have been providing ingenious solutions to your most difficult material handling problems for the past 30 years.

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