Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hitch Pin or 5/8" Grade 8 Bolt.

The block says 13k, the pin is 20k+. Is that a 1/2" shackle? If so, it's probably near 20k breaking strength. So, the block is the weak link. If that isn't enough, you likely need a heavier hitch. It's certainly more than the OP's 4Runner can handle.

Either bolt is plenty strong. I found long ago, a grade 8 bolt with a lock but is very cheap anti theft device. In Kodiak the key lock quotes working after a year. You can always house the nut off.

They make winches for removal of stuck vehicles. I would worry more about the recovery strap or what ever you use, than the hitch pin. Hard sudden yanking as you put it, calls for removal straps and or rope. The pin will be fine.

As someone who has used and tried to break about every setup out there,
I say it won't matter. If it's the proper sized bolt, you'll break everything else before it goes.
We have used Grade 8 Bolts and a lock washer on all our permanent applications around the farm forever.
We've broken about everything possible at one point or another. NEVER has the bolt broken or even shown signs of being close.

My main concern is the hitch skid flying out of the receiver during a jerk and snatch recovery, and then hitting a vehicle or a person. That thing weighs about 8 lbs. and would really put the hurt on anything it hits. I'm gonna go with a Grade 8 bolt.

Your toyota doesn't have the weight or power to break the pin. Actually very few vehicles, if any have the power to break the pin. It would have to shear both sides at the same time to go flying out. Your over thinking this considerably!

That Toyota has more than enough power to easily wreck just about any part of the hitch assembly. Getting a 50' running start and something is going to break, guaranteed. In a more static situation, I agree, the Toyota is the weak link.

Use the pin. Remove it when not in use. No theft, shins intact.

Some good insights posted. Thanks.

Matt's Off Road recovery discusses this on several of his videos- especially after the guy was killed about a year ago when somebody used their drop hitch to try to pull somebody out of a mud hole... it broke, flew through the guy's windshield and killed him on the spot . There are several videos now on this subject and it might be wise to check them out if you intend to do this. Matt also sells some kinetic pulling straps that help with pulling people out of bad situations when brute pulling power won't do it...

There is another site on line and I can't remember their name that refutes some of Matt's advice in recovery by showing extreme destructive testing on towing straps, shackles, and other equipment. I can't seem to find the video at the moment...

I've done the recovery thing many times over the years when buds were stuck while we were four wheeling or got into bad situations one way or another when out in the pucky brush and never gave it much thought- but something to think about...

Also, everyone is posting the listed strength of given bolts and pins but that is in stress- not in shear. Shear numbers are a whole different story

Bingo!!! We have a winner.

I've always used a hitch pin in offroad recovery situations. I've never torn one up. Hitch pin will do just fine.

I will just leave this here
You can make your own decisions

A Grade 8 bolt is very hard and under a shock can slap.
A Grade 5 bolt it kinda hard but has more ductility and will bend.
It can take Shocks and still be structurally sound.

I have been a Structural Steel Welding and Bolting inspector for 34 years and in Commyfornia with all of the Earth Quake crap they frown very heavily of the use of a Grade 8 bolt for Structural use.
I have seen Engineers spec out Grade 8 bolts but not very often.
They do not like brittle bots for Structural use due to the Shock values.

Just my opinion but pulling a trailer with the bumps and humps in the road.
That may create Shock on the Hitch pins

Re: locking pins... I had one once... A good one... And within a year it froze up and the lock was as worthless as a screen door on a submarine.. It took a saws-all with a special blade to get rid of that pos... I don't need a lock now - just remove the hitch and put it in the storage compartment in the truck..

Overall, and coming from someone who's farmed, helped uncles who farmed, (and now work for a farmer with serious equipment) and who has pulled everything from soup to nuts, I'm with those above; get a hitch pin and call it good.. JMVHO...

Structural bolts are almost exclusively used in shear. The shear strength of a grade 8 is higher than grade 5, and provides a higher shear strength value for the connection. Period. That being said, the bolt may not be the weak link - so using a stronger bolt might not gain any overall connection strength. There is no "bending" of a bolt in structural shear connection. Failure modes in steel are almost all catastrophic. The bolt shears, or the steel tears out in chunks (block shear). Seismic design requires the steel members not the connections, to yield and absorb the seismic energy. When a contractor complains about grade 8 bolts, it's because of the expense and availability, or lack there of.

Here’s the simple engineering perspective. Unless you are using a real long bolt and washers so you are only loading the shank, a bolt used in that application is loading across the threads. The threads themselves act as stress risers and will fail at a much lower load than otherwise determined by its strength and cross-sectional area.

Next.

Good afternoon kind sir. You are correct in using the proper tool for the job. Can a bolt work? Sure, it can also fail in dramatic fashion. Bolts are not designed around side shearing force. Hitch pins are. Im a service manager in a large RV dealership and have worked in this industry for over 25 years, most of which was spent as a technician. I've seen anything you can possibly imagine. Ive seen bolts fail. It can happen I'm sure, but to this day ive never seen a hitch pin shear off.

Structural bolts like A325 and A490 are used as a clamp in most cases anymore
Yes they have shear values but it is the Tension (Clamping Forces) that Engineers Calculate over the shear values
That is why they Tension bolts in buildings instead of just having wrench tight bolts
Think of a C Clamp holding something together. An Structural Bolt just does it from the inside instead of the out side.

i have used A325 bolts as a Hitch pin in a pinch when I could not find a hitch pin in the moment.

You are correct. That's called a slip critical connection. And the strength value of the connection is directly proportional to the "tightness" of the bolt. The tightness is about 70% of the bolts tensile strength with is based on the same psi strength value of the metal as the shear strength (oversimplification but good enough). Higher strength bolt = more tightness = stronger connection.

gunchamp;
Good afternoon to you sir, thanks for the reply.

My goodness I'll just imagine you've "seen some things" then in the RV service business.

For a couple years I managed a fair sized indoor and outdoor storage facility where we stored boats, RV's, classic and exotic autos.

Here in BC up until a couple years ago one could waddle into an auto dealership, buy a new pickup and get a 5th wheel hitch installed and then buy the biggest RV on the market and legally terrorize the highways with a regular Class V driver's license. A couple years back the powers that be decided that if the trailer exceeded 4600kg then the driver needed an upgraded license which includes some training.

Yes indeed though, the "average" person out west here who retires having never driven anything bigger than a Camry, then deciding to become a snowbird... well sir when you say "anything you can possibly imagine"... I can imagine a wee bit!!!

There were a couple local RV dealers who I had a really good working relationship with their service departments since more than a handful needed their services.

Thanks for the information, the chuckle and the memories.

All the best.

Dwayne

Edit to add;
After the storage business shut down, I worked a year for a Big 3 auto dealer and was somewhat perplexed how often they'd sell a customer a pickup that was not going to be able to pull what they wanted to.

For that matter, some of the RV dealerships sold trailers to people that were too big for their little SUV to pull safely on our mountain roads, but we saw far too much of that as well.