Video Transcript for Convert-A-Ball Interchangeable Ball Set: The Breakdown

Hi there, trailer owners. Today, we're going to be taking a look at Convert-A-Ball's convertibles interchangeable ball sets. These sets are available in either a two or three-ball set, with either a nickel or stainless finish. We're showing off the nickel today. They're also available with either a one or three-quarter-inch shank, and either a regular or an extended length. The one you'll see here is a one-inch with the extended shank, and we've got a one-inch here as well, with the regular shank, so you can see the length difference.The extended shank is great for any accessories that need to be installed underneath your ball.

One example would be on my pop-up camper. On the drawbar that I have for that one, I have a friction sway control that had to be installed under the ball, and the ball that I originally had on there was like this one and it only had a couple of threads out the bottom, and I couldn't put the plate on while allowing full threads to be fully engaged in the nut. A longer shank like this will allow you to install those accessories.Now, you've probably already guessed it, but the coolest feature about this is that you've got every ball access to you right here at your fingertips. We we're just hooked up to a two, but now let's say you went over to visit the in-laws and you need to drop some trash off at the dumpster down the street. You hook up their small trailer, but it's got a one-and-seven-eighths-inch ball.

Well, just grab that out of the back, swap the balls, and now you're getting work done.The one-and-seven-eighths-inch ball here is great for your smaller trailers, maybe like a little utility trailer. Or maybe you want to have some fun. Our kayak trailer here is a one-and-seven-eighths-inch, so this is a perfect option for this, to be able to take this to the lake maybe for a weekend. And then when I get back from the lake, I'm going to have to take my horses to the show and I'll switch over to my larger trailer here, that uses the two-and-five-sixteenth-inch ball. Now that we're done having fun, it's time to get some work done.

I put the two-inch ball on and we're going to hook up the utility trailer.Compared to your traditional drawbar and ball-mount setup, this is going to save you not only time, but also some money because you're not going to have to have multiple drawbars to hook all your balls to, and it's a lot less work if you only had one drawbar and you have to switch out the balls, you got to torque those down each time. This is extremely quick to move from one ball size to the other, and we can do it all with the same drawbar.The only time that there's any drawbacks with this is if you have great varying heights between your trailers, you may need different drops on your drawbar. But if they're all fairly similar in height, I highly recommend this setup. And if that is your problem, we do have adjustable drawbars as well, so you can change the height. They are a little pricier than your regular drawbars, but it does minimize how many different pieces you have to keep in your truck.

You can have one adjustable height and one adjustable ball size to keep that in one small little space, in the back of your truck.This here is the three-ball set, showing off the sizes. You'll get a one-and-seven-eights, a two, and a two-and-five-sixteenths. If you we're to get one of the two-ball sets, you would get either the two smaller sizes here, the one-and-seven-eights and a two, or you could also get that with the two larger sizes, having a two, and a two-and-five-sixteenths, whichever one best matches the trailers that you're going to be hauling.I also wanted to talk about the difference between the one-inch and the three-quarter-inch shanks. The three-quarter-inch is going to have half the weight rating of our one-inch shank. The one-inch shank models can have a 2,000 pound tongue weight, as well as a 10,000 pound gross towing capacity. The tongue weight is the force going down on top of the receiver, while your gross towing capacity is the total weight of what you're pulling behind you. With a three-quarter-inch, that's going to go down to 5,000 pounds for that gross trailer weight rating and 1,000 for the tongue weight.We're currently showing off the nickel finish, but it's also available in stainless. And regardless of which finish you purchase, both of them are going to protect it against corrosion, so you can have a long-lasting operation of your ball. And it's also not going to be an eyesore, months down the road. One of the things you can do to help extend the length of your ball here is to put just a little bit of lubrication on it before you put your coupler on there, and that can just help it slide over, and that'll help keep it from wearing off any of the finishes.To get your ball installed onto your drawbar, first you want to determine if you're going to be putting it in the rise or in the drop position. We're going to be putting ours in the drop position on this one. We're going to slide it up from the bottom. Then we can follow it up with the lock washer, and the included nut. And now we'll need to torque it down. You'll want to make sure that the hole here is parallel with the bumper, so going cross-ways here, I guess you could say perpendicular with your drawbar.We're going to clamp it into our vice because it's the easiest ways to torque it down. But if you don't have a vice at home, some other options, you could slide your drawbar into your hitch and you could use a rod, like a large screwdriver to hold it while you torque the nut, or you could also use a pair of vice grips to clamp around it, and then have something that it hits against while you torque the nut down. But if you do have a vice, I highly recommend using that because you'll just have a lot more control.Now, we can torque it down. The torque spec and size of socket you'll need is going to depend on the diameter of the shank. If you've got the one or the three-quarter, those are going to be different. You'll find the specs on the packaging. There's instructions on the inside for how much to torque it down.The reason why I like the vice is because we know we've got that bar perpendicular with our drawbar. We can hold the drawbar and make sure it doesn't turn, while the ball is held into the vice. It just really makes it one of the easiest ways to get this torqued down. Then take the included Cotter pin, slide it through the hole in the bottom of the shank, and then you can just twist the end of the Cotter pin around to keep it secured.And now we can go ahead and install our drawbar with our ball on it, into our hitch. We're going to go ahead and just secure it with a pin and clip. If you need a drawbar or a pin and clip, you can get them here at etrailer. We've got plenty of different drawbars available. You can see, we've got a nice drop on ours, to get us down for the smaller trailer we're going to be hooking up to. But there are varying size drops we've got here, varying weight ratings, so you can match it up with the Convert-A-Ball kit that you had purchased. We also have locking pins available so you can protect your investment.Now that we've got it secured to our hitch, we just need to choose the ball size that we want to use, and then we're going to install that. The ball has a small rod that goes in it. You can see it there in the center. On one side of this rod, you're going to have a dimple. That's the end that you'll press on to release it. So we're just going to press in there and then it pops it out here on the other side. We can then just pull it out. If it does get jammed up, you can use a screwdriver, but in a lot of cases, you can just do it by hand. Our ball then is just going to slide on in place, and then we'll push the pin back in to secure it.You might be thinking, "Boy, that pin came out of there really easy. What keeps my ball in there" Well, if you think about it, once you put your trailer on here, the coupler is going to go over top and there's no way for that pin to come off, keeping you secured to your drawbar on whatever ball you've chosen.I've gone ahead and installed Tow Ready's interchangeable ball sets so we could show you how this one works and some of the differences. The Convert-A-Ball, you saw had the pin that slid through to attach it, and you had three balls. You're going to get the same sizes with the Tow Ready. You are a little more limited on the finish. It's just going to have the chrome finish here. You're not going to have the option of nickel or stainless. But I think the chrome looks nice. And you'll see here, how the ball installs. I personally find it easier to install on the Tow Ready because it just drops down on top, the button pushes in, and it locks it in place. When you're ready to take it off, you push the button and then it slides right off of there. So I do find this to be quicker and easier.The downside to the Toe Ready compared to the Convert-A-Ball though, is that the weight ratings are going to be less on the Tow Ready. With the one-inch shank on the Toe Ready, you have a maximum of 8,000 pounds, while the Convert-A-Ball has 10,000 pounds. So if you need the extra carrying capacity, I would go with the Convert-A-Ball, since it has that 10,000 pounds. But if you don't need that and you're just looking for something quick and easy, the Tow Ready to me, is going to be just a better option. It's quick to get the ball on and off. And another cool thing about the Tow Ready is that the ball does rotate on the shank here, on the shaft, so that can help prevent any binding. So it just comes down to weight ratings, higher weights, Convert-A-Ball, lower weights, this one's just a little bit easier.And that completes our look at Convert-A-Ball's interchangeable ball sets.