Dutton-Lainson Coupler Repair Kit for 1-7/8" Couplers

Video Transcript for An In-Depth Look at the Dutton-Lainson Coupler Repair Kit for 1-7/8" Couplers

Today we'll be looking at the Dutton-Lainson Coupler Repair Kit for model 940, 960, and 970 couplers, part number DL13968. For demonstration purposes we'll be using a 970 coupler, part number DL13728. Here's what our coupler repair kit comes with. We have a new ball latch assembly here, we have our new latch and handle that operates our ball latch up and down to a secure hitch ball, we have two new springs, a new nut, and a new plate, which holds our nut into place, and you can adjust it fully based upon this plate here just running the nut up and down to get to the desired tension that you want. The reason you want to have this repair kit instead of replacing your entire coupler assembly, which you may have welded to your frame or your trailer instead of just bolted in place, is over time your ball latch can get worn out and not couple to your hitch ball properly anymore, which could cause your trailer to pop off, which would be a bad situation. Also, your latch here, your handle may not clip into place properly anymore on your coupler. As you see here, clips into place nice and easy on this one, but sometime you may not be able to have a secure connection, it may pop off easily, and you can't latch it down all the way, which is no good. You want to be able to securely latch it, that way your trailer does not come off your tow vehicle. For demonstration purposes, we have our coupler off our trailer right now.

That way we can fully show you all the inner workings of it so you have a better view and you can understand what's going on better. If you're working on this still attached to your trailer you want to make sure that you chock the wheels on your trailer for safety purposes. You don't want to cause any physical injury to yourself or any property damage if the trailer we're to move on you while you're working on it. We'll start by opening our latch. Turn it upside down, push down on our nut plate, remove our nut. With nut removed, we'll slide the nut plate off, take our small spring off, and we can pull down, take our latch assembly out, take our ball latch out, and our large spring.

Now we have the bare coupler. We'll install our new handle latch here, drop our spring down on, take our ball latch, take our small spring, our nut plate, and our new nut. Thread it on. Normally this nut spins freely but ours is a little stiff since it's brand new. Use a 3/4" socket, give it a few turns with the socket.

It should spin nice and freely once it goes past the initial threads. We'll run it down a little bit, right there is probably good. We can adjust it further if we need to by pushing down here on the spring and moving it further down or further up to get the desired tension we want on our ball. We'll test our operation out by closing the latch. As you can see, it latched down in place. We have a nice, solid connection here around our hitch ball.

Additionally, what's nice about this repair kit, is it done come with a locking pin that you can insert here, and this will prevent your coupler from being opened without first removing the pin. With our coupler back together now, we can now reattach it to our trailer if we removed it, hook up to our tow vehicle, and go on down the road safely without having to worry about a difficult to use coupler or one that no longer grabs onto your hitch ball properly. That completes our look at the Dutton-Lainson Coupler Repair Kit, part number DL13968.