ARGH!

Well.. today was a discouraging day!

We had several things we wanted to get done. The first that we attempted was to put the new hi-low hitch on. To do that, we first needed to remove the tow bar from the back of the motorhome. We had done that when we were in St Anthony as the Roadmaster folks had wanted to ensure that the hole where the hitch pin went it was not getting out of round through the tension being put on it; it turned out, he only wanted us to try to move the stinger in and out of the receiver to see if there was give, but we pulled the stinger all the way out to measure the roundness of the holes (they seemed round to us). We put it back together and it seemed fine (other than the other tow bar issues).

So... removing the hitch pin just wasn't happening today. We had a hitch pin like this one:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hitch-Haul-Stabilizing-Receiver-Pin-with-Lock/24093684
You may notice that it has a metal piece that comes out of the hitch pin inside the hole - I guess to make it a "stabilizing" pin. Well, that piece would NOT go straight in the hitch pin to allow us to remove the pin. We could pull it out a couple of inches, but then it would stop when that part got to the hole on the other side of the receiver/stinger. We tried everything we could think of, but there wasn't a lot of room under Miss Doozie to work, and there was almost no room around the pin to work within the hole.

We called the company (Masterbuilt) tech support and asked if they had any ideas. They did not... I confessed that we were at the point that we were going to try drilling it out - she said that if we did, they would send us a new one.

So, back under the back of the bus... still no luck. We sprayed some dry lubricant in there, and that cleaned things up some so we could see the space cut for the metal piece to go into, and we were able to run a narrow piece of metal and determine that it seemed to be clear - the metal piece just did not want to hinge down into there. So, Dwayne suggested that we cut off the end of the hitch pin, and he started cutting with his dremel tool. After about an hour, he was able to break the end off. Now we could really see that the piece of metal was the thing preventing the hitch pin from coming out of the hole, and now we had a little better access to it. I was able to get some needle nose pliers on it and got it back straight with the hitch pin, and it FINALLY came out!.

Honestly, looking at the part now, and attempting to move that piece (it doesn't move easily), I'm rather amazed that it ever came out.

Cut hitch pin

So, now we had to get the tow bar removed - pulling the stinger out of the receiver. Not an easy task either, but we finally got it out. Whew!

Then we put the new hi-low hitch in, and... its stinger is not long enough to for its holes to line up with the holes in the receiver - the "hi" part ends up hitting the bumper of Miss Doozie!

So... we're back to square 1, down one hitch pin, and no better on our hookup to the Jeep. As I put as the title of this post, "ARGH!".

And, we spent so much time on that task, that the only other ones we got accomplished were emptying the kitty litter and trash.

We are sure that God has a purpose in all this, but we just don't know what it is yet!