Some further testing on my trailer

[Alan Evans]

I can see some advantage of the crossed safety chains. But it must be a faff putting them on every trip. It begs the question what if they fail as well…where do you stop with system back up layers?

What is it that typically fails? Do you use ball hitches or ring and pin? Is it the ball clamping system or the actual drawer bar metalwork? Bad maintenance or just the high mileages your vehicles do in their lives? Can you be certain the failure will always take place in front of the attachment point of your safety chains?

Alan

[ThomasPowers]

Usual is Ball hitches of various sizes with ring and pintle for very heavy load systems, + gooseneck 5th wheel systems.

Typical failures?  I'd say tires.  Ball hitches do fail from the balls becoming unscrewed or perhaps more often lift off from improperly balance loads.

Safety chains are a cheap and easy method of back up for one of the critical failure points with several failure modes.  You only have to need them once for that "hassle" to become a welcome part of hitching up!

[yahoo2]

The actual page I found was http://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_112924/article.html

Thanks Alan, that is the link I tried to post, I pasted the text a second time to correct my spelling, it must have grabbed another link at the same time. Sorry!

[LawnJockey]

I will second what Thomas said about tires.  I had a tire failure carrying a way too heavy load of green rough sawn planking for my cabin on the freeway at 55mph.  My first mistake was not realizing how heavy the wet planking was.  My second mistake was thinking I could make it home to split the load in two so as to be able to make it to the cabin.  The trailer started swaying and then a tire blew.  I jack knifed at 55mph.  There was a hard impact and I thought I had totalled both the trailer and the tow vehicle.  Fortunately I had a heavy duty rear bumper on the tow vehicle so it was fine.  The professionally made trailer's frame had totally bent from the impact with the bumper and it was a total loss.  I ended up facing the oncoming traffic.  Due to some sort of miracle there just happened to be a gap in the traffic when the incident happened.  I could have easily been killed or worse, I could have taken out an innocent family.  Some chances are just not worth taking.

[ianinsa]

That 'tire problem' isn't just on trailers over here (and in the USA) guys often put mag wheels and low profile tires on pick-up trucks cause it looks cool. Not realizing that tires have a max load rating (some are as low as 350kg) and they forget that this includes the weight of the vehicle. I would hazard a guess that in excess of 90% of IFI folk(who are probably more 'technical' that most ) have never ever read the sidewall of their tires. Relying on the guy at the tire fitment center that would NEVER sell them 'dead stock' , product 'b'  because he makes more profit on it than product 'a'   , what he has 'on hand' rather than lose a sale etc.

[Alan Evans]

I appreciate the tyres are the most likely towing failure, I have had them shred a couple of times…but what I was asking was, what is the typical failure that the crossed chains was able to remedy or at least ameliorate?

Is the ball hitch able to lift off (due to back heavy loading) because it is worn or because it was bad design/manufacture?

When I have had the prop system slip when I am loading or unloading the little 360˚ digger on the ramps, it has just lifted up the back of the wagon by the ball...

It is well known that tyres on trailers, being subject to standing in the sun on one side more than the other, are prone to deterioration of the sidewalls even with an almost full compliment of tread pattern…someone used to sell sunshields for them. When I renewed the running gear on my trailer a few years ago I treated myself to some dedicated trailer tyres which have a much higher ply and load rating than normal car tyres. But even those must be kept at the correct pressure to take the full load. The load rating rapidly drops with under inflation.

Alan

Edited July 7, 2015 by Alan Evans

[Nobody Special]

Cross safety chains, electric brakes, and with a ball hitch, a little loctite on the threads and a cotter pin. Then again, one of the more spectacular trailer failures I had (my wife actually, she knew something was wrong, but decided to try to get it home....sigh.) was a sticking e-brake that dragged and blew two tires. You can have backups on your backups, but sometimes, stuff just fails. Good preventative maintenance helps....mostly.

[Alan Evans]

I haven't seen electric brakes, how do they work?...and don't say electricity!

Alan

[Charles R. Stevens]

The thpical failer with a ball hitch is operator error, as in not geting it hitched properly, forgeting the draw bar pin, not adjusting it to fit the ball properly or not insuring the ball is screwed down tight. 

Chains arn't as much a pain as one would think, each one has a hook to attach to rings on the vehicle. simply twist the chain to take up the slack. The  ringes are close to the ball.

electric breaks use an electic magnet to acuate the shoes the outside face of the drum is machiened (the bitom if you use one for a forge) and the electromagnet graging on this face pushes the first shoe in to the drum wile the first shoe grabing forces the rear shoe into the drum. We use a battery and a deadmans switch to acuate them incase of the trailer coming compleatly uncoupled from the tow vehicle

Edited July 7, 2015 by Charles R. Stevens

[ianinsa]

I haven't seen electric brakes, how do they work?...and don't say electricity!

Alan

Alan , it would appear as if you were expecting some snarkie answer? Did you forget where you were posting this question? This is IFI there is no Finney fanying here! Just straight answers.............................. Now can I interest you in a lightly used, painted for appearance only with good hearsay provenance.....? 

[Frosty]

The advantage of using cross safety chains as opposed to a single is maintaining control of a loose trailer. With a single chain the trailer can turn behind the tow vehicle and if you're familiar with the PIT maneuver where the pursuit vehicle collides with the vehicle being chased's  rear bumper at an angle. This causes the rear end to move to one side which causes the vehicle to vear in the other. Police use it here to end chases in a controlled manner. Dirt racing we used to call it "Stuffing" the opposition.

Anyway, with a single chain the trailer can turn and and gain enough momentum to one side that when the chain stops it it can cause the rear end of the tow vehicle to vear one direction making it GO the opposite.

Cross chains prevent a trailer from gaining enough sideways momentum to jerk the tow vehicle to one side or the other. The trailer tends to jerk back and forth a couple feet max but without building enough momentum to cause serious control problems. Cross chains help keep the hitch from driving full weight into the road.

Cross chains allow enough movement to turn or even jackknife in reverse as they cross directly under the hitch ball or pintle hook. This doesn't hinder controlled maneuvering of the trailer forward or reverse. It only applies pressure to the trailer if it comes unhitched.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Nobody Special]

Won't say electricity, won't say electricity, won't say...........ELECTRICTY???

What charles said, plus you have to install an adjustable brake control in your truck that control's how much of a signal it send, and delay on braking/letting up.