3 PTH Trailer Hitch

The other day I started building a 3 PT trailer hitch for hauling my wood chipper and trailers around the property. So far the cost is just over $50.00 for all the materials that I needed to build it. The two main beams are 2" x 3" steel. The top anchor points and lower brackets are 1/4 steel welded to the ends of the stock. The lower brackets were doubled up for extra strength and welded together. The hitch itself came from Harbor Freight. I ran out of gas for my mig welder and will be getting a new tank today to finish welding it up. I'll be sand blasting and painting it hopefully this afternoon. Then I will post some pictures of it.

Here's a picture of my new homemade trailer hitch setup.

Looks good Jim. I cobbed something together real quick one day when I needed it "right now". Nothing close to as nice as yours.

Thanks, I should have turned it around for the picture. The front is on the other side with the chain eye hooks and reinforced tubing for the hitch. It is still wet and hard to handle. I painted the bottom side first and let it dry before doing the rest of it on the floor on top of old paper. Here's the front side. It doesn't matter how good it looks as long as it does the job it is supposed to do.

I like it. Thanks for posting the pics.
I really need to make one, I have most of the steel.

shvl73 said:

I like it. Thanks for posting the pics.
I really need to make one, I have most of the steel.

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Thanks, The main reason that I made this is so that I can use my wood chipper without having to take it off the tractor. Using the tractor's trailer hitch under the rear end limited my turning radius. I couldn't get my tractor out of the way of the chute on the chipper. This was a real PITA whenever I was using it. I can also level out the chipper now just by raising or lowering the 3pt arms. I also won't have to block the wheels anymore to keep it from rolling. I'm hoping for nice weather tomorrow so that I can try it out.

JimR said:

Using the tractor's trailer hitch under the rear end limited my turning radius. I couldn't get my tractor out of the way of the chute on the chipper. This was a real PITA whenever I was using it.

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I can relate to that. I was hooked to my landscape trailer and had just unloaded 100+ bales of hay on a extremely hot day, turned around out on the road (busy 40mph+) and the tractors rear tire lugs stripped off the weight distribution bracket on the trailer tongue. Not wanting to leave the trailer sticking out into the road, I pulled in and ran right over the bracket. Trashed a $100 trailer tire.

I can relate to that happening. I've had my rear tires try to cimb over the trailer frame on my wood chipper a few times now when making sharp turns. This will cure that problem.

Nice work Jim. Looks like a good project for me too. I use a clamp on on my FEL but if going much of a distance I much prefer it to be hooked to the rear, and like you guys said, the built in hitch is to close and will catch a wheel in a semi tight turn. Plus I like the idea of being able to level the load when you have the hitch hooked onto the 3PH setup. Rep points for sharing your project and pics with us. Thanks Jim!!!!!!!

Thanks Doc. I got to use the hitch today with my wood chipper. I can actually make a turn wider than 90 degrees now to get my tractor out of the way of the chipper shoot. I also found that you no longer have to lift or lower your jack if using this setup. I can back right under the trailer, lift it up, then flip the jack upwards. I do the same to lower the trailer by dropping the jack then lowering the hitch to disconnect from the trailer.
Yeeha, I am one happy camper. I'm heading out now to try my trailer hitch winch on it. I have a bunch of trees that are down in a wet area that I do not want to drive into to retrieve.

My Warn trailer hitch mounted winch worked great today for pulling broken tree tops out of the wet area that I wanted to clean up. Last December we got hit by a severe ice storm that caused a lot of damage to most of the trees on our property. We are still cleaning up from that mess.