The one we used with our popup had a plate that laid underneath the 2" ball, which had the smaller sway bar ball.  No welding.

this topic has been covered many, many times.  The "search function" will give lots of responses.

My take is that a weight distribution hitch with integrated sway is the safest way to go.  It is not essential, but I am happy to spend the $$$ for safety and peace of mind.  I have towed 3 different R Pods with 3 different tow vehicles Chevy Astro, Honda Pilot and Ford Expedition EL) thousands of miles including 2 cross country(NC to Washington State) trips. All of those miles used an Equalizer 4 point wdh hitch system with built in sway control.

When roads are smooth and there are no sudden changes necessary, you probably don't need them unless you are dealing with weight/loading/balance issues.  However, when you have that blowout or the passenger side tire drops off the pavement edge or other sudden change, sway may suddenly becomes a BIG issue. Like any other form of insurance, you only need it when you least expect it.  Most of the time, if you don't have it the first time, you will have it next time and hope you don't need it.

I am sure that my Ford Expedition EL will tow without either wdh or anti-sway, but I will always use it.I think it gives me more stability and safety without being difficult to use.

Everyone has their own opinion and can justify it.

safe travels

Vann

I would highly recommend it. We towed a 179 with a short bed Nissan Frontier crew cab as well as a long bed Frontier crew cab. A WHD with built in sway such as a Fastway E2 offers both weight distribution and anti sway. Even towing slow, you will run into road and environmental conditions that will induce sway.

I ride on the other side of the fence on this issue when looking at the original, smaller rpods.  With the larger ones, especially the 2x axle yes, great idea and likely safer as well. 

In our case we have traveled with our 177 (fully loaded with 36 gallons H20- FW tank behind axle, weighs in at 2940 lbs.) for the past 13 years and over 44,000 miles, much of that going across the Midwest to get to the Rockies, and yes we have encountered huge cross winds in the process.  Our tow vehicles for the first 8 years were an '08 and '13 front wheel drive Explorer, the last 5 have been with a '95, '11, and '17 F-150.  All vehicles utilized a simple Curt friction bar and nothing else, no bad experiences or issues encountered and this is over all sorts of weather conditions such as blizzards, sleet, hail, heavy snow and rain, and cross winds in excess of 25 mph.  We keep the tongue weight just north of 11% at 340 lbs. which imho, makes a huge difference. 

A lot of problems have been encountered by those using WDH on the small trailers, the major one being the separation of front and side panels noted on the front of the trailer.  I have not seen this as an issue for those who only use a friction bar, though I am sure there have been some due to leakage issues.

I already had the equipment and it was a couple of years old at that point so I don't have reason to not believe them....

This is probably true for any WDH. You would just adjust to lessen the tension on the spring bars. That being said, you have added a bunch of weight that you would not need if you went with a simple ball hitch and friction sway bar. I know our E2 hitch alone was pretty heavy. Add the spring bars and hardware and my guess is there was easily 60-70lbs in the WDH alone.