Eagle Hitch Wear Question

I have been using an Eagle hitch Case Mower (EDSC7) to mow about 15 acres for two years now. I just realized that it is wearing out the pivot hole on the eagle hitch lock…but only on the left side. My assumption is that when you are mowing the resistance of the cutter arm puts a pull load on the right draft arm but actually puts a forward pressure (and some lifting pressure) against the left draft arm. I guess eagle hitch latch and lock were not meant for constant forward pressure. That plus the vibration may be causing the wear. Is there something I am doing wrong??? I can’t believe the original design would wear out so quickly…

Wow that is a good picture! I needed to know what the shape of the springs are supposed to be since mine are pretzels.
Are the other contact surfaces also wearing at an accelerated rate? I am wondering if vibration and forward forces created by the mower are only causing that one place to wear so fast. One thing that you could try is to build up the bottom of the lock with some weld bead to cause the lock to sit horizontally. Then the latch would not be able to twist the lock upward against the pin. In other words; it looks like the part of the lock that is acting as a wedge between the latch and the draft arm is sitting so far down in the gap that as the mower pushes the latch against the lock the lock gets twisted and the only thing stopping the lock from rotating is the pin where all of the wear is.
I would look at the locations that have the most wear and see if adding some metal there would help.

Dave