Safety chain placement

coolbreeze01 wrote:
Good pics Larry. Should help those wanting to hook up correctly.

Thanks and the one thing I have done, but didn't take pics is I at one time I blocked the TT wheels, connected the safety chains only with the ball off the tongue and then pulled the TV slowly forward confirming that the crossed chains would in fact "LIFT" the tongue off the pavement. Now obviously I have never and hope to never be able to report how things work in a real disconnect, but from all my tests I believe how I have my setup done and will work to the best I can determine is the best. I guess to close things out with this worry about "locking" up the wheels in one of Rons replies to my belief that this is really not an issue he provided some calculations suggesting what I was asserting was probably correct. I have also tested the full amerage breaking (12A to the magnet ckt) and I can't lock up my wheels at any speed over about 20 to 25 miles per hour on dry pavement. In any event I really don't care if they lock up at a slow speed since within a few seconds the speeds will be so slow that the real dangerous situation is for the most part passed. Also, with the centerline tracking that crossed chains from a common attachment point provides any swerving of the trailer due to skidding tires will tend to straight the trailer out just like you would do to straighten a trailer out in a sway event, by carefully applying the TV brakes only.

Finally, I guess I get a little worked up when I see folks throwing around what I can only call "WILD CONJECTURES" with absolutely no supporting data when I have done a lot of the "belt and suspenders" type work as best I can to address most of these WAGs and while no perfect, outside of the work done by JBarca on the chain lengths have seen no tests or pics supporting these what I call "WILD CONJECTURES".

Larry