Patent ID: 6932376

Claim:
A safety fastener for a ball and socket hitch having a ball carried on a tongue of a vehicle hitch structure and a socket beam with a forward hemispherical portion pivotally and removably carried over the ball and operatively interconnected to a towed vehicles, comprising in combination: similar paired opposed vertical fastening post collars defining a medial channel therethrough carried in laterally spaced positions on each side of the hitch tongue spacedly forwardly of the ball, each vertical fastening arm collar defining a plurality of vertically spaced fastening pin holes extending diametrically therethrough; similar vertical fastening posts slidably carried in the medial channel of each vertical fastening collars with at least one of said vertical fastening posts defining a plurality of axially spaced fastening pin slots extending therethrough to cooperate with the fastening pin holes defined in the vertical fastening pin collars to receive at least one fastening pin therethrough to positionally maintain the at least one fastening post in vertical position relative to the associated fastening post collar; a horizontal fastening beam extending between and carried by upper end portions of the paired opposed vertical fastening posts, said horizontal fastening beam having a fastening protuberance extending rearwardly over a portion of the socket beam carried by the ball of the ball and socket hitch; and at least one fastening pin extending through the at least one vertical fastening post collar and vertical fastening post carried therein to positionally maintain the vertical fastening post in the vertical fastening post collar, said fastening pin having releasable means for positional maintenance in the at least one vertical fastening post collar carrying it.