etrailer Tow Bar Adapter Brackets to Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plates

Video Transcript for etrailer Tow Bar Adapter Kit for Roadmaster Direct-Connect Base Plates Review

Hey everybody, Ryan here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be checking out the etrailer.com tow bar adapter ends which will allow you to pair up your etrailer XHD or SD tow bars to RoadMaster direct-connect style base plates. One of the awesome things about these etrailer.com tow bars is how versatile they are. You know, they're gonna be able to pair up to a lot of different brands of base plates, if you will. And sometimes you just find yourself in a scenario, maybe you've got a damaged end or something like that and you just want to replace it. That's where this kit'll come into play.

But more than likely, it's gonna allow you to take your tow bar and allow you to hook it up to that RoadMaster style base plate. And that's exactly what happened today in our scenario. So our neighbor had this etrailer XHD tow bar and happened to have originally the Blue Ox style of ends on it. And that's because the vehicle that they we inchesre flat towing had a Blue Ox base plate. Well, you get a new vehicle and set it up with a RoadMaster style base plate, you know, these ends aren't gonna match up and work anymore.

So as opposed to having to settle for a base plate that you really don't want, or you know, kind of being forced to buy a whole entire new tow bar, you can simply just change out the ends and allow you to pair everything up. Here's what the adapter ends are gonna look like and, you know, they're gonna come with all the hardware you need to get 'em switched over, which is nice and that's gonna hold true for the XHD and the SD style tow bar. So regardless which one you got, you'll be able to get 'em changed over and really nothing to 'em, nothing to 'em, you know, lets you pair them, pair it on up. And I'm a fan of these pins too, so you got the very large handle, you got a chain on it that attaches this ring and and pin to it, so you'll never have to worry about losing that, you know, it all stays together and that's something a lot of people kind of forget about because a lot of these adapter ends aren't gonna come with this. And so you get the adapters, you think you're in good shape and then you go to pair everything up and realize you don't have the correct pins.

So it's nice to see that the adapter ends come with the pins and these are gonna be sold as a pair as well. So you get one kit, it'll work, you know, you'll be able to replace both the ends on your tow bar and get everything hooked up. Aside from that, there's really not a whole lot to these. You know, it's gonna be a very quick and easy way to change out the end on your tow bar and get you going again, and I think that's fantastic. You know, we talked about the versatility earlier.

A lot of people end up holding onto their RV longer than they will their vehicle that they're towing. And so if you find yourself in that situation where your next vehicle uses the different base plate or whatever, can change the ends out not a huge deal, and still be able to utilize and maintain your original tow bar. And that's gonna hold true, you know, for a lot of different ends, whether you got RoadMaster end, Demco, etrailer, Blue Ox, whatever the case may be, chances are pretty good we're gonna have an adapter end that'll work for you. As far as getting these installed, extremely straightforward. Only takes a couple of minutes and you really shouldn't run into too many issues. But why don't we go ahead and get this one swapped out together. If your tow bar has existing ends on it, you need to remove those. Thankfully, you know, this kit comes with all the new hardware and everything that you're gonna need. And in our case we have the etrailer.com XHD tow bar, the more heavy duty one, so it's extremely simple. If you have the SD version, little bit lighter duty, it's similar to how these go on, a little bit different. You have a couple more pieces which do come with the kit. So just keep that in mind. This is just kind of a guidance here to get you going in the right direction. But the very first thing you want to do is take your bolt and you want use some blue Lock-Tite on the threads. Whether it's a stick like this or a tube of it, you will have to get it separately. But I'll just go ahead and put a little bit on the threads there. You're gonna take your bolt, put it through the adapter end, and then where it comes through, you'll have these spacers. Put one of the spacers on the bolt, line that up with the tow bar end here, get it going through the hole there, and then just push the bolt to where it barely comes out of the other side of the tow bar. Then you wanna put another spacer on that side, push the bolt all the way through, take your nylon lock nut. We'll go ahead and get this started. And then we're gonna tighten this down using a 3/4 inch socket and wrench. So whenever you're tightening these, you want the end to have some resistance in it, you know, to where you can still move it around and adjust it how you need it to be, but not super loose or super tight. So kind of, you know, that happy medium. So I'm happy with this one, and you'd simply just do the same thing to the other side of the tow bar to get that one installed.