Roadmaster tow bar rebuild

[LandHo]

I've had my Sterling tow bar since 2003. The inner bar keeps sticking after trips. It looks straight, but with a little bit of road grime, it does not slide very well. I called roadmaster and they sold me 2 inner bars (~$200). They were easily replaced and now they feel like new... I wonder how the bars got bent? The bend must be very very very minor... I wonder why roadmaster does not use covers for their bars like blue ox.

[bdpreece]

Usually the only way to bend a tow bar is if you try to back up and put a bind in it. They must have thought your problems were self inflicted. I live somewhat close to Roadmaster but when I had bushing problems with my Stowmaster 5000 I took it over to them and they gave it a tune up free of charge while I waited. This was on an over 11 year old tow bar.

[LandHo]

Yes, they probably thought it was self-inflicted... I wasn't in the mood to plead my case with them last week and I wasn't going to be at any rallyes for them to take a look at it either... I am happy that I fixed it and don't need to get another tow bar...

[Hikerdogs]

I wouldn't be so sure the rods were bent. Once the rods were removed did you put a straight edge to them confirming they were bent? We've had our Sterling since 2004 and have put over 65,000 miles on it. Some time ago we had a similar problem with the rods. It was almost impossible to get them to collapse even though I clean and lube it regularly following the manufacturers instructions.

As a last resort before sending it in for a rebuild I decided to spray some WD40 on the rods to see if it would help. Low and behold the within seconds the rods moved as freely as they did when the unit was new. It seems that over the years we had accumulated road tar and gunk around the wipers that wouldn't dissolve with the standard household cleaner (Fantastic was recommended by the manufacturer).

After that minor success I disassembled the rods and flushed out everything with a good dose of WD40. I couldn't believe how much tar, gravel and gunk had gotten picked up. Once everything was free of crud I washed all parts thoroughly with soap and water, sprayed them down with silicone, and reassembled.

That was 2 years and almost 20,000 miles ago. Everything still works fine and moves freely. Now that I know what works I'll repeat the process this fall to avoid future problems.