Thread: Tow Chains & Snap Hooks

Totally agree !

Originally Posted by Thommo

Can I have a rant here?

Why is it that every second car I see with a trailer in tow appears to have cheapo snap hooks attaching the safety chains to the vehicle that are at their best weight rated to hold your car keys!

Rant Over

Short answer is probably to stop the chain ends dragging along the road, or otherwise because they make a nice match to the totally inadequate lightweight link chains that are typically tack welded on many box trailers.....

To be honest, I suppose most people use the cheap hooks because they simply don't know better - who tells them other than the guy at the counter of the hardware store or servo? It certainly isn't on the tow hitch of most small trailers.

A bit like storing petrol under your house - who knows until................ That's another rant coming on from me.

Cheers,

I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who don't cross the chains to form a cradle and/or have chains too long to keep the drawbar from hitting the bitumen.

I will get into this, are you sure they are cheap snap hooks? If so then yes they are dense however I use steel Karabiners that are more than capable and have a better load rating than most D shackles used in this application. Most D shackles used on trailers are rated from 500kg to 1000kg max, thats if they are even rated shackles, most shackles I have seen on trailers are not even rated. Karabiners are rated from 3 tonne to 5 tonne and already have inbuilt safety margins already.

"Rated" shackles should have larger diameter pins than the body of the shackle, one way to distinguish from toy shackles and should have the WLL or SWL embossed on the body of the shackle. If you can you should use shackles that have pins with a hole through the big end so as you can put a wire through and around the body of the shackle to ensure the pin doesn't rattle loose when off-road, it's called "mousing", Regards Frank.

Originally Posted by CraigE

I will get into this, are you sure they are cheap snap hooks? If so then yes they are dense however I use steel Karabiners that are more than capable and have a better load rating than most D shackles used in this application. Most D shackles used on trailers are rated from 500kg to 1000kg max, thats if they are even rated shackles, most shackles I have seen on trailers are not even rated. Karabiners are rated from 3 tonne to 5 tonne and already have inbuilt safety margins already.

I would be happy if people were using real carabiners, I would even use some of my abseiling carabiners if push came to a shove but I would never use them again for rope work, "D-shackles" would be much cheaper.

No I have never seen anyone use carabiners just cheapo snap hooks!
Unfortunately some snap hooks are advertised as "carabiners".

Size and looks are not everything, my 3.5mm key ring has a rated breaking strength of over 1 tonne

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Probably not recommended for this application though as they do not have a way of locking the (screw) gate shut.

It is one of my pet hates too!
I have witnessed a trailer that did not have the chains connected come astray in a 60kph zone and it went a long way before it stopped. Luckily no was injured but on the positive side it staked an almost new rear tire on the towing vehicle. So a $250 lesson for the owner and hopefully a mistake they will never make again. Luckily the trailer was empty but this person also reguarly tows horsefloats. The thought of a runaway loaded horsefloat at 80-100 kph makes for some horrible thoughts.
It is very common around here to see trailers with either the chains not connected and dragging on the road or they are connected with those two bob snap hooks.
I have never read it but was once told that bow shackles should be used as a preference instead of D shackles!

Cheers, Mick.