Anyone ever mounted an 1 1/4 ID square piece of tubing to this round crossbar tube to make it into a receiver hitch ? I want to pull my small 4x8 trailer with my tracker  and I think this will work . I have a good welder and would also weld a plate to it for the trailer safety chains.
just can't see spending The $100+ when this is already mounted and looks like it is mounted the same as commercial assemblies .
Yes or no ?
Thanks,
Raz

May I ask why ?

Yes I have and it works good for a real small and lite trailer, I cut a piece of 1 1/2'' angle iron to fit snug on the sides for welding and then drilled a bunch of 1/2 '' holes all over it and then welded it to the ends and then filled the holes with weld and then welded a small square tubing with a pin hole in it to the center of the angle iron, it looks good and works good for pulling it out of the deep snow here also.

Yes I have, and No you should'nt. The bar is made of very thin wall stuff, and If you take it off and shake it, you will most likely hear pieces of rust inside. I used it to pulla very small 4x6 trailer to haul wood to my campsite on our farm. It never failed on me, but I never got over 10 mph, and it had started to sag and crack pretty badly, so i ditched it and welded on a heavy duty piece. Now I feel safe pulling even my 10x6 trailer FULL of firewood.

If the bar is rusted that bad then your frame could be also,we don't have rust where I live and I welded to the sides of the frame hangers and I'm over 200 lbs and I can jump on it with a trailer hooked to it and it is just fine so I guess it depends if your in the rust belt or not!

I removed that whole piece and made a new one out of heavy steel to mount a 2" receiver on.  Pretty easy to do....just some angle iron for the frame mounts on the side and some box tube or C-channel for the cross piece....then some 2" ID box for the receiver.  I don't pull a trailer, but I have one of those cargo racks that slide in the receiver.

I removed that whole piece and made a new one out of heavy steel to mount a 2" receiver on.  Pretty easy to do....just some angle iron for the frame mounts on the side and some box tube or C-channel for the cross piece....then some 2" ID box for the receiver.  I don't pull a trailer, but I have one of those cargo racks that slide in the receiver.

I agree we did kind of the same thing. If you have a welder and a grinder. Buy some metal and your set. It would be stronger and safer. We did not use C-channel for the cross piece we used  2"x2". Everything 1/4" thick

Pretty sure there's holes under there that are intended for a bolt-on tow package.

If the bar is rusted that bad then your frame could be also,we don't have rust where I live and I welded to the sides of the frame hangers and I'm over 200 lbs and I can jump on it with a trailer hooked to it and it is just fine so I guess it depends if your in the rust belt or not!

Even if it's not rusted at all, it's still not a very strong peice. It's a lot safer, and a pretty easy, to just replace that piece with a heavier piece... Mine was warping down pretty bad when I had a reciever on the stock piece, which is why I replaced it. It's not just a rust issue, it's a strength issue

The hitch replaces that bar and bolts in the same location. Buy or build one but dont use that tube its weak. Most hitches have 1-1/4 receiver for that weight class.

Do you guys have any idea what that bar is there for?  I do!

I believe it's a reinforcement in case of a rear end collision.

Anyone ever use one of those universal receiver hitches like for Acme,drawtite or reese ? Do you happen to recall the part # ?
Thanks,
Raz

I cut out the sides and welded square stock to it that would fit inside the square stock from a random hitch i had laying around then welded that on and it works fine ive pulled 2 snowmobiles on a 4x8 trailer i dont know if i would recomend it tho because the ends of the old peice i used are pretty weak