Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Safety chains on trailers

Had a trailer come loose a while back, buddy helped hook it up, and I didn’t double check him. He dropped the hitch onto the ball, and I hooked up chains and lights. he didn’t lock the hitch down, and I didn’t notice, since we were talking about something. Normally don’t do that when hooking up. Anyway, here we are running down the road, all normal, until I feel a slight jerk and hear a scraping noise behind the truck. Look back to see the trailer leaving the road and taking out a fence. It ended up in some folks’ driveway.

When I stopped, the safety chains were hanging from the hitch on the back of the truck. Got to looking, found out they had been merely spot welded to the trailer, which was bought new and was only a couple of months old. Load was fine, trailer lost a taillight and I had to rewire the the lights hookup, and straighten the jack, but no real harm done except having to fix a fence. Could have been a lot worse. From now on, safety chains will always be examined before I buy a trailer. For the record, the trailer was a B/R brand, made in Iowa.

Remember earlier this summer - this pickup being held up by it's safety chains on a bridge in southern Idaho?

Being a CDL license carrier and having to follow DOT regs make you check all of this stuff 2-3x before hopping in the cab and especially check if you have a helper and they do the hooking up.

I have to stay on em all of the time to cross chains and run the hooks in from the front side of the eyes and not drop em in from the rear side.

Also as much of a PITA as the keepers are make sure they are functioning.

Last week we went to a scout camporee about 200 miles from here. One of the leaders borrowed my utility trailer to haul gear. His hitch was too low so I loaned him a 4" lift mount and put one of these anti-rattle clamps on it. During the camporee, they had to remove the ball mount for some reason and the guy who put it back on (not my friend) failed to put the pin in it. My friend towed the trailer home 200 miles and over a steep hill with only that clamp holding the ball mount in. We both got a shock when we took the mount off and found an empty hole. I HIGHLY recommend these clamps to stop the rattling...and other things.

Okay Toby, Mark and I resent that comment!!!!

I regularly haul horses with our Sundowner gooseneck. I always do a walk around and check doors, tires and hitch before jumping in and driving away. I did find the B&W turnover ball not latched one time. Fortunately, horse hauling goosenecks are naturally tongue heavy when loaded.

If you do use chain hooks instead of some kind of locking latch, be sure to run it through the hitch loops from the bottom instead of just dropping it in from the top. It's less likely to bounce out on bumps.
If you do need the chains, the loops on most receiver hitches is the weak point.

this way...


not this way...these will bounce out on bumps.

And pin the lock on the hitch, top pic not pinned/locked.

Hard to tell from the pic, but it looks like those chains might be long enough to let the hitch hit the ground. The chains are suppose to catch the hitch and keep it off the ground, thus you still have some control of the trailer, to bring everything to a stop.

Most of the time the safety chains are too long and need to be adjusted

Just twist the chain until it's the right length to keep it off the ground and work properly.

Chains are made to be cut down when installed. Many people don't.

I don't know but I think the average receiver hitch is good for around 1200 pounds of tongue weight and at least 7000 of trailer weight. Looks like at least three hitches in use there so that should add up to 3600 pounds of tongue weight and 21,000 trailer weight. He should be good to go. He should have hooked the chains to the box though. GD

Add a few more and he'd have to buy 18 wheeler tags.

Great googly-woogly!!! I see THAT on the road in front of me and I'm STOPPING until it's outta sight!


It ALL depends on the 'class' of that receiver..

Here's a site with some good info: https://hitchhousega.com/hitch-types/trailer-hitch-class-models/hitch-class/

Go to the LH side and click on the various 'trailer hitch' classes of hitches and it'll give you a good rundown on what to expect your particular truck can safely (and legally) haul...

The chains in the bottom pic. look to have an S-hook with wire safety latch the top pic. not so much.

Those chain hooks do have keepers/safety latches, or whatever you want to call them.
Still a good idea to latch them from the front though, and always cross them.

Amazing how many fires are started by dragging chains.

the upper part of this is designed to hold a bicycle rack, nothing more. Also, the length of it greatly reduces the carrying capacity. That Rube Goldberg setup is probably only good for a couple hundred lb tongue weight.