Towing Excitement

In reply to Wally :

We use those on our trailers. The smaller hooks are just too easy to bend. 

bentwrench said:

Crossing the safety chains will help with that "going back and forth" thing.

 

$250 fine in some States for not crossing them.  Don't ask ......

Only because it hasn't been mentioned in this thread, but i'll bring up also that aside from crossing the chains, you can also twist them before hooking them up to take slack out of them and make them shorter. In a perfect world there's enough slack to let you do as tight of a turn as possible, but not enough that if the tongue comes off the hitch it will hit the pavement. Your crossed chains would be like a sling that the tongue would fall into and not actually dig into the pavement. In a perfect world..

My dad had a trailer with a bobcat come off the hitch one time. Supposedly he caught it with the back of the truck and got it to the side of the road with no issues. I wasn't there to be able to give the details of what went wrong and right, but im sure glad it went down that way and not worse. 

I've never had hitch issues (as of yet). I usually tow cars with a tow dolley and the issue is almost always the straps. That's why dolleys often have safety chains from the towed vehicle to the dolley as well as from the dolley to the towing vehicle. 

914Driver said:

bentwrench said:

Crossing the safety chains will help with that "going back and forth" thing.

 

 

$250 fine in some States for not crossing them.  Don't ask ......

What about if the chains attach to the same point on the trailer and crossing is impossible?  (HF trailers)

I like the carabiner for this sort of work

nutherjrfan said:

I was following an unladen pick-up truck the other day and the trailer ball and what seemed the entire hitch ( forgive me if I'm using the wrong terms ) was flopping from side to side.

Is that a new design?  Was it some sort of a joke or was it in some sort of damaged but never gets used so who cares sort of state?

Very strange looking but hey nothing being towed so all good unless it fell off onto the roadway. 

I've seen hitch systems that swivel from side to side to make it easier to connect the trailer. You're supposed to pull forward a little and then lock the whole thing straight ahead. Maybe if they lost the pin?

In reply to Toebra :

If you check the ratings on the majority of carabiners, they are not strong enough to use on a trailer.  The forces created by an un-hitched trailer at highway speed are very high.

In reply to Dr. Hess :

I always use a locking pin, after I have my receiver hitch and ball stolen.  Maybe by someone who whacked their shin on it!