Is this unsafe to do this?

My old one just fell out one day. don't know if animal or small person pulled it partway.Pins are plastic.

The whole point of connecting the emergency breakaway lanyard to something other than the receiver is that the odds of both the receiver and whatever you attached the lanyard to will fall off, at the same time, are small.

On tow vehicles where the receiver is not attached to the bumper it ought to be a viable place to attach the lanyard. It does not take that much force to pull the pin on the breakaway switch that it would tear the bumper off the truck. If it does you've got bigger problems.

You can only plan for so many "what ifs," but you don't have to intentionally defeat one of the safety mechanisms that are already in place to deal with many of those "what ifs."

tinner12002 wrote:

schlep1967 wrote:
To all of those that say it looks safe, after the coupler becoming disconnected or the ball/nut becoming unthreaded, the pin holding the hitch in the receiver is just about the only other possible failure point causing loss of trailer. If the cotter pin comes off of the pin and the pin slides out, what is going to activate the brakes?

What if and what if! We can all what if this happens, well what if your frame breaks, and what if when it activates the brakes don't work, you can only take so many precautions for what if.
Personally I would hook mine that way, actually it looks kinda thought out to me, much better than just hooking cable on the safety chain hook which many do.

Yes there are the what if's! And then there is the right way to do it! And that clearly isn't the right way.

BenK wrote:


Anyone guess where this goes with where I clip on my safety stuff?...

Your belt loop?

;)

schlep1967 wrote:
To all of those that say it looks safe, after the coupler becoming disconnected or the ball/nut becoming unthreaded, the pin holding the hitch in the receiver is just about the only other possible failure point causing loss of trailer. If the cotter pin comes off of the pin and the pin slides out, what is going to activate the brakes?

What if and what if! We can all what if this happens, well what if your frame breaks, and what if when it activates the brakes don't work, you can only take so many precautions for what if.
Personally I would hook mine that way, actually it looks kinda thought out to me, much better than just hooking cable on the safety chain hook which many do.

Here's how I set up the break-away attachment point on our GMC 2500HD -

Moderator edit to re-size pictures to forum limit of 640px maximum width.

marininn wrote:
Someone mentioned that the threaded chain links will break, explain further???? They are rated at thousands of lbs, so why they break? What is the best option?

There is nothing wrong with the threaded chain links provided they have the proper rating.

Think, for a moment, about the breaking strength of your trailer safety chains.
Will those chains hold the trailer if it comes off the hitch ball? The law says they must.
Now think about the amount of force that will be applied to those chains if the tongue falls off the hitch ball, and the brakes are actuated with full voltage. Will those chains hold that force?
How about the mild steel loop that the chains are attached to the trailer tongue with? Will it hold?
How about the attaching point at the vehicle end. Will it hold against full brake application?
Think about it.

I saw a friend attach his to the hook holding the safety chains to the trailer, then he attached another hook to the safety brake's hook and ran that to the TV hitch. Inconceivable!

Someone mentioned that the threaded chain links will break, explain further???? They are rated at thousands of lbs, so why they break? What is the best option?

NJRVer wrote:

Lantley wrote:

NJRVer wrote:

Terryallan wrote:
Never Never Never hook the lanyard to the hitch. As mentioned. IF the hitch breaks, the brake pin will not be pulled. Will be useless.

I put a I-bolt thru the step bumper where there is a place for chaines to be hooked if using the bumper to tow. I hook the lanyard to that. So that even if the hitch fall off, the brakes will still be pulled on.

I think I have more faith in the hitch than I do in a bumper.

It's not about faith. The whole premise of the brake and cable is that a failure can occur. If failure occurs it is wise to have cable attached to anything other than the point of failure

If you take it to the nth degree, a failure can occur no matter where you make the connection.

Correct but you have a better chance of the brakes engaging if not connected to the same connection point. It would require 2 simultaneous failures vs.1