Lube Your Hitch Dummy!

Today I lifted the hood of the truck to check the battery posts, clean and condition my air filter and change my fuel filter. Within two minutes there were two, then three, then four guys standing around offering suggestions. Good thing too, because I needed it. One of the guys asked me when was the last time I lubed my 5th wheel hitch? Lubed? Hitch? “Uh……..well……….uh, never. I didn’t know I was supposed to lube my hitch.” The reason I’m exposing my ignorance is because I know I’m not the only one who didn’t know this. I’ve been full timing for a couple years and have never seen anyone lubing their hitch. How often do you sit around the campfire and say, “Hey Frank, lubed my 5er hitch today, what did you do?” Frank, “Oh, I lubed my leaf spring equalizers. Yep, it was time to get-er-done.” Stirring the fire with a long stick, Frank looks up and says, “So what kind of grease did you use anyway?” "Lithium of course!" (Sure hope that was the right answer!)OK, so I’m a dummy, but hopefully someone will learn from my mistakes. Here is how you do it: First, remove the retaining pin and pull out the main pin. The main pin was rusted so I cleaned it up with sandpaper. This is the cylinder that the main pin holds in place. I've extracted it from the hitch cradle and turned it upside down for maintenance. Sounds like I know what I'm doing doesn't it. Sheesh, look at that rust in there! Some guys just abuse their equipment! I also reamed the cylinder with sandpaper. I applied grease to the main pin. I applied grease to the lube points on the mechanical mechanism including inside the cylinder.I used silicon spray on the areas I couldn’t reach with grease. After I put it all back together, WOW, what a difference! Now it’s a happy piece of equipment and I can show my face again at the campfire. Jim