Where to connect brake break away cable on Patriot Hitch

Gotta agree with Bill, makes sense. Most of us don't win the lottery either, especially those of us that don't participate!

Jerry

dpgllg wrote:

Sjm9911 wrote:
Ok, i will just say how i do it. I hook it to the hitch. Not the ball. In the scheme of worst case scenarios, the ball will fail first, or i the locking mechanism will fail. Odds are the whole hitch assembly thats bolted on coming off are slimmer. I hook mine up to where the saftey chains go, i make sure the wire is less distance then the chains. So if i come off the hitch it will enguage and the chains will still be on. I will be able to feel the breaks on the trailor pulling back and i can stop. This way seems safest to me.

OP here,
I was refering to a 5th wheel hitch not a bumper pull.

With the old 5th wheel hitch there were holes up the side of the hitch that I could easily reach.

I do have D rings on each side of my truck bed at the rear but I felt that if I really needed it work I'd want it to work ASAP. By hooking to the hitch which is in the middle of the bed it would pull out maybe a few seconds faster than one connected at the rear of the bed.

I have never heard of the entire 5th wheel hitch coming out of the truck just while normal driving. I agree in a rollover or collision it could be ripped out and at that point I'd have much bigger problems to deal with.

Dave

Whoops, im still having a hard time navagating this site, lol. Yes i see now.

If you have an example of a hitch pulling out of a pickup, and the trailer remaining on it's wheel carriage, I would like to see that.

Trucks/trailers that have rolled don't count. The break-away cable isn't going to be an issue in that scenario.

The only scenario where this is going to matter is when the hitch pulls out of the pickup and remains connected to the trailer king pin. If the hitch and the pin separated, the weight of the falling hitch head would still pull the break-away pin.

Anything can happen of course, but a scenario where this would matter is so against all odds as to not be of any legitimate concern. The odds are better that a pin box would separate from the trailer, in which case the switch also would not activate. From that standpoint one could argue that putting the switch on the pin box, instead of the frame of the trailer, is poor design. Somehow we live with those odds, because we are realistic beings with common sense. Most of us anyway.

bpounds wrote:


The stuff about a hitch pulling out is non-sense.

Really it has happened.

Use a carabiner to hook in the release handle lock hole. Then you have connected the cable as well as latching the release handle. Combine with a padlock if you want that feature.

The stuff about a hitch pulling out is non-sense.

Drill a 1" hole in the bed through the frame. Drop a 7/8" eye bolt in the hole through the frame with a 2X heavy nut on the bottom. Connect your breakaway cable to the eye bolt with an old rubber band.
Hook it wherever you want.

We have the B&W Companion and with our old trailer we would hook to on the arm of the hitch. Just picked up our new trailer a couple of weeks ago and drove it home. This time we hooked the cable to the D ring tie down on the back drivers side.

Backing into the drive requires a 90 degree turn, pulled the cable and activated the breaks. Took me a second or two to figure out what was going on. :S

So we'll have to come up with a different location, but at least the trailer brakes work.;)

Tie down ring back left corner of truck bed works for me...right by the 7 way connector. Easy to reach and always done together with the 7-way.

I replaced the outer bolt (closest to side of truck) on the handle with an eye bolt (same size). hook my caribeaner clip on to that.

Personally I really don't care where it's attached, but if wanting to do it properly the hitch isn't the place.

I attach mine at a back puck/hitch base point.