What about something like this?

5/8

To keep your hitch safe and secure, the BulletProof Stainless Steel Locking Pin is a great solution for locking your hitch to your vehicle receiver and for locking your dual ball to your hitch. This universal 5/8" locking pin is compatible with any trailer hitch or vehicle receiver

www.bulletproofhitches.com

It has a backup cotter pin to hold the pin in place should the lock fail.

 

"If you use a locking hitch pin, remove it, and throw it in the trash. Do not trust them."

"I will never use a WD hitch again."

WOW, you had a rough go, but seriously, the safety measures and level headed driving resulted in exactly the outcome we all hope for, minimal damage & no one injured.

That being said I think you are being more than extreme in insisting that no one should ever use any locking hitch pin and that using a weight distributing hitch is somehow a more dangerous option than others. It's analogous to saying something like "You all should remove every one of your all terrain tires because I was driving really fast on a hot interstate and I had one blowout on me! I'm never going to use an all terrain tire again!"

It may be that slack in the mount allowed repeated shocks causing a failure, metallurgical failure in the pin, manufacturing error, mismatched pin to stress levels, random act of God, etcetera etcetera. The fact is with any of the systems we use, trucks trailers hitches motors transmissions lights tires phones watches, there is always a remote possibility of failure. The key is that we do our best to plan against causing a failure and then plan ways to mitigate danger if a failure occurs.

I have seen hitch pin locks so robust you could literally drag it straight back through the metal of hitch and it would not fail and I've investigated vicious accidents where the only intact and undamaged component of the hitching/towing connection to the tow vehicle was the wd hitch.

I AM NOT saying there was any fault on your part and I am not saying that the components you had didn't inappropriately fail, I am just saying it can happen with any components and there is no particular reason to damn equipment that has been used successfully and safely by a vast number of people.





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FYI I have used a trick demonstrated to me by my uncle when I was young to make better use of the safety chains;

I have two safety chains, one attached to each side of the trailer hitch, and I connect the chain from the right side of the trailer hitch to the connector on the left side of of the draw bar on the truck and so forth for the other side as well. I also connect the chains such that their length is adequate for turns etc but short enough that the cradle formed by the crossing chains will support the trailer hitch should a failure result in a hitch ball disconnect. This little trick keeps the jack stand and front of the trailer hitch from striking the road and dragging or digging in.

If you ever see it in action it will cause a real "A-Ha" moment.

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I also cross my safety chains. However, the design of my trailer is such that the tongue is very low to the ground when the trailer is level. So low that it would be impossible to tighten the chains enough to cradle the tongue.

My comment about WD hitches had nothing to do with any safety aspect. I do not think the hitch itself had anything to do with the failure. I just couldn't stand the rough ride that it afforded any more.

The locking pin linked above looks like a good design. They should all be like that. I realize my post was a little over-dramatic, but I wanted to get a point across that we all need to be extra cautious when pulling heavy loads at high speeds. Based on my own experience, I will never use a locking pin again, and I think people need to be leary of them. It's just not worth it. I'm lucky my chains did exactly what they were supposed to do.

 

I agree with RLT...
Your locking pin failed. Maybe you bought a cheap one, maybe there was a bad one in the lot, there are thousands of possibilities. I have high end locking pins that I bought with my receiver. They are fine.
A non-locking hitch pin can fail just as easily.

I also cross my safety chains, but luckily have never had that bit of cautious preparation come into use.

 

I use one that don't let the hitch rattle so it's bolted in and has a lock on the end

 

Was your locking pin made in China?

 

Hitch Locks

Receiver hitch locks

deadboltlocks.com

I use this one. No complaints so far.

Stay frosty

 

This actually happened to me a little over a year ago, but I feel compelled to put it out there. I was towing my enclosed trailer (about 8k total weight) up Hwy 23 in Michigan, tooling along at about 70 mph. If you've ever driven 23 just north of the Ohio border, you know there are some really, really rough parts. While enduring a particularly bad part, I heard a loud bang and a sudden jolt. My first thought was that I had a blowout. I immediately turned on my hazards and was able to get over to the shoulder and get stopped. After taking a couple minutes to regain some composure, I looked in the rear view mirror, and the front of the trailer looked closer to the truck than it should. When I got out and walked back, I saw this (picture was actually taken after backing up enough to disconnect the safety chains):
View attachment 46158
After doing some inspections and noticing that the hitch pin was nowhere in sight, it became quite clear what happened. The damn locking hitch pin broke, and, due to the extremely rough road, had worked it's way out of the receiver. When it did, the hitch pulled out of the receiver, the tongue of the trailer slammed down onto the jack, and the safety chains caught. As I came to a stop, the tongue jack slammed into my bumper, tearing it up. Note the location of the bottom hole and pin on the jack:
View attachment 46161
The heat from dragging on the road actually melted about 3" of the aluminum jack, and it then resolidified. Based on the absence of any gouging on the hitch and receiver, I'm quite sure the hitch pin did not shear but rather, the lock end of it broke off. Before you write this off as me being a moron and not properly locking the pin, I can say with absolute 100% certainty, that pin was locked. Fortunately, I had a spare hitch pin with me and was able to make it the last 100 miles of my trip without issue. As an aside, after this trip I ditched the weight distribution hitch and got a Gen-Y torsion hitch. I will never use a WD hitch again.

Lessons learned here:
1. Make damn sure your safety chains are in good shape and properly attached. If this trailer had broken free, it could easily have caused a fatal accident.
2. If you use a locking hitch pin, remove it, and throw it in the trash. Do not trust them. If you're afraid of your hitch being stolen, just remove the hitch.

Be safe out there,
Sean

Ok, so I hate to be the know-it-all, but I happen to know what actually happened here, and it’s not actually that the lock failed, it was the other end of the hitch pin. And I say this, with the intent to show that the locking hitch pin that HWTechGuy shared as a possible solution, may in fact be just as dangerous to use.

Not all locking hitch pins have this abhorrent design flaw, some are milled as one solid piece, as opposed to several pieces that were assembled. It would be unfair to lump them all in together, and to assume that a cotter pin on a non-locking hitch pin will stay put (without a zip tie holding its legs closed), is also a bit naïve. They all have their flaws.

Last weekend we went riding, there’s three of us, so we have three ATVs to transport. The third, and smallest ATV, rides in my rear hitch, on a VersaHaul. When we were unloading Saturday evening, I noticed that the locking hitch pin that hold the VersaHaul into my hitch didn’t look right. Something was off. My locking hitch pin was the universal type that had the outer sleeve to adapt a 1/2” shank, into the necessary 5/8” diameter that a 2” hitch uses. This sleeve was covering up the flaw. I slid the sleeve just a tad bit towards the lock side of the pin and it exposed the issue.

I was outright dumbfounded. The flaw is so egregious, that the CPSC probably ought to initiate a recall campaign. I went out and replaced my “assembled” locking hitch pins with solid milled locking hitch pins Sunday. I’m not making the same mistake twice.

Now, the fact that you were using a WD hitch has no bearing on the issue. This flaw will envelope everyone that uses this style hitch pin. And furthermore, most XD’s are only rated to dead-lift tow up to 10,000#. If you want to be able to tow the 10,990 for gas, or 11,990 for diesel, you’re required to use a WD hitch. Most non-GVW classed vehicles are required to use a WD above 5,000#. Some, even as low as 3,500#. So to just blanket statement that WD hitches are dangerous, is a blatant falsehood. I speculate that if there were the proper amount of down-force on the front of the truck, as applied by the WD hitch, that the hitch wouldn’t have ever slid out, even if the hitch pin was never installed. If you’re not using the trailer’s tongue jack to lift some weight of the truck during hitch-up, then you’re doing it wrong. You MUST lift the trailer tongue, using the tongue jack, once the ball is latched up, beforeyou load up the spring bars. But I digress.

I’ve attached a few photos to show the flaw in living color.

 

You MUST lift the trailer tongue, using the tongue jack, once the ball is latched up, beforeyou load up the spring bars.

You also MUST have the weight in the trailer before you adjust the bars, whether chains or friction. I watch people hook the system up and then start loading the trailer and I’m dumbfounded. And those bars are weight distribution people, not “sway control”. AND most of them don’t allow for backing. You’re supposed to take them off to back anything other than straight.
But yeah, properly applied they probably would have held your hitch in place from the amount of force they exert on the hitch into the receiver.

 

Here's a sweet solution to the unpopular standard locking hitch pins. Big Sky Precision, Inc from Montana are producing these. They might still have a introductory promotion going on. Anyhow, hope this helps!

Hilgard Pin™