Don’t just throw the tow rope around the ball

What is best for your average truck, a shackle where you normally hook the safety chains? I would predict the safety chain area to have less overall metal and would be weaker than the tow hitch? Unless it was a cheaper quality hitch? I saw the story and how there was a baby seat in the back. Messed up for sure. Ive towed out a couple handful of people over the years and always used the tow hitch. I keep a tow strap in the bed of my truck for 25 years and not even using it correct. I also never loaded it up very much because i dont have a truck and trans worthy of railing on it being the older style strap. Its not a stretchy nacho libre strap. 

Did a quick search and see shackles for tow straps. Also seeing shackles attached to a hitch? Maybe its light duty applications. Will look more later at the ratings. Ive heard people say they like harbor freight for cheap hand tools, but they would never buy something like a tow hitch there. Could this be a sad sad example of an underrated hitch? I remember bohica made the post about hitch pins being of different quality. Oh wait....was that Randy? I think Bohica had a ball break. Someone else had a pin shear? Both ended well luckily with zero injuries i think. 

 
Question:

What is the difference between using a hitch receiver tow eye vs tow hook? Why should I chose one over the other? Thank you

asked by: Frank
Expert Reply:
The Tow Eye, like # TR63045, and Trailer Hitch Receiver Mounted Forged Tow Hook, # TR63044 are both used a lot in vehicle recovery and winching operation applications but are not the safest option for other towing needs. The choice between using a tow hook or a tow eye will mostly depend on what exactly you need to recover the vehicle.

If off-road and you get stuck, you could use a winch and pulley block and connect it to a tow eye so it cannot slip off. But if you were pulling a vehicle that got stuck in a ditch or mud, you could use a hook to quickly slip on a tow strap. To determine which one you would need or if there is another option, it really depends on the situation.


expert reply by: Michael H
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HTElectrical said:
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From the pic's posted it looks to be a drop hitch which put a lot of leverage on the hitch and the inserted tube which IMHO could have contributed to the failure, a straight hitch would have been better and a pintel and a 1 inch screw pin shale would be even better, the straiter the load the more capacity it will have.

our condolences to the family RIP

 
Were they really trying to pull out that F250 buried in the mud up to the door jambs using the ball on the end of that giant drop hitch? A Kenworth wrecker would have had a hard time with that.  I wonder if a blanket or something heavy thrown over the middle of the tow strap to help deflect the energy if it let go would have helped??

Yes a sad story indeed. My heart goes out to his family.

 
KLC said:
Were they really trying to pull out that F250 buried in the mud up to the door jambs using the ball on the end of that giant drop hitch? A Kenworth wrecker would have had a hard time with that.  I wonder if a blanket or something heavy thrown over the middle of the tow strap to help deflect the energy if it let go would have helped??

Yes a sad story indeed. My heart goes out to his family.
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I was just going to say the same thing. I've seen straps, hitches and lots of other hardware brake during recoveries and heavy parts sometimes go flying. Fortunately I've never seen anyone get injured from them but there have been times when they hit things like windows and tailgates and stuff. Every time a recovery blanket would have slowed or stopped those parts from flying. I now always insist on putting something weighted on the recovery strap, chain, rope. Nobody including myself carries a recovery blanket but a jacket with a few rocks in the pockets or a chain or whatever. Sometimes people will say "ah, nothin's gonna happen" but if you ask them if they want that shackle going through their grill and radiator or their back window then oddly that seems to be more convincing than personal injury. Go figure 

 
I wonder if they were trying to slingshot him out with a little bit of a running start. 
I usually pull someone out with just a straight pull by removing all the slack first. If that doesn’t work, I’m done, because I won’t try and jerk them out. 

 
I've used the tow pin through the eyelet of a strap before a few times as well as the tow ball for light stuff. Needless to say, that truck right there wasn't going to come out without digging it out or a real tow truck. That might as well be concrete the way it looks in the pic. 

Such a catastrophic disaster. RIP.

Will definitely remember not to use the ball ever again. 

 
We use the winches on our trailers for every car we transport. I've taught my son to stand to the side and use the wireless remote. 

Late 90s I drove heavy duty tow and recovery with my younger brother. While winching a truck up an embankment the cable snapped and smashed the windshield on the passenger side of my tow truck. If the cable had went to the drivers side it would have killed me. 

 
The hitch almost looks like aluminum with as porous as the metal looks.  

Kinda crazy, the way things fail.  Makes me wonder about the life of that hitch.  

 
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Bobalos said:
The hitch almost looks like aluminum with as porous as the metal looks.  

Kinda crazy, the way things fail.  Makes me wonder about the life of that hitch.  
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One of my drop hitches is aluminum.  But it is solid aluminum and looks beefy. 
But I’ve often wondered if it is stronger than a metal tube hitch. 

 
It sure does look like aluminum but that’s probably just because it was loaded well beyond ultimate strength resulting in a fast fracture. One of the early lessons in school for mechanical engineering is that steel is better suited for safety applications than aluminum because it tends to bend before it breaks. Wide range between yield and ultimate strength is a measure of ductility. High strength aluminum tends to have a small range between yield and ultimate, thus is brittle. It’s why things like pressure vessels are typically steel not aluminum. No different with a hitch. 

 
Almost learned this lesson the hard way. 

Cliff notes story.

We were at Pismo, A buddy of mine gets stuck on the way in. We uncouple his trailer I pull him out with the ball on my truck. I then go back to get the trailer. We needed a 2 -5/8 ball for his set up. I proceed to change out my 2 inch ball for the larger version. this is when I find the hitch cracked almost all the way through both sides where the ball goes through the hitch. 

Since then I only use a hook when the call for help arises.  

 
A good reminder to think about what you're using. I like the new ropes that loops through itself. 

abc

 
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