Towing out snowed in cars - a cautionary tale!

I'm beginning to be glad he's 4000 miles away ...

Ok.....

LOL!

Apples and oranges for sure here!

Not talking tow ball mount, just the ball. Hitch mounts can be made strong enough to anchor the winch, let alone a tow ball.

This is a world wide forum cross posted and advocating using a stock or generic tow ball as an extraction anchor is nuts!!!!

The post bolting the ball to the mount is only about 1" or less in most cases.

Use a snatch or knetic rope puts serious stress on the ball. Softer hit than a 'hard' chain which will just drop the ball off to the ground, but more dangerous if it lets loose. Same for a winch that can shear it!

Now for sure we are on other planets!!!!

I mentioned the difference from our bogs an that 'grass ditch' your camping field is on a while ago.

LOL!!!! You are just toooo funny!

Yes, I will have to admit I would likey let someone use their tow ball as an anchor to get them out of the campground parking lot....

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!

Mike

Thanks. Please don't think I'm being deliberately provocative, but the safe working load of your wire is less about one ton/tonne:

Yes recover hooks are welded or bolted on the frame, which is what you should be using if you have them. Unibody POS cars do not have them and no body should be doing a hard cable pull on a car like that.

We don't have any oil, go away.

A proper tow truck can pick up a car by the wheels and has insurace for if it does rip the front end of your car. That's what's different. You're giving me a strong impression you are missing the point.

Follow up on this, chucklehead.

I thought that was a british humour test and the first respondent failed.

Or try

Well, if your POS unibody is stuck in the snow and you can attach a chain or strap to your recovery hooks, what would you hook it to on the car to pull it out? Usually when you get towed, they grab ya by the wheels, but I think a hard pull might just give you an unwanted caster adjustment if using straps around the wheels as the pull point.

__________________ Note: To reply, replace the word 'spam' embedded in return address with 'mail'. N38.6 W121.4

You are talking in circles, what's stuck nt he snow, my truck or the peice of s*it unibody car? If a POS car is really stuck, I don't try to pull it out with my truck, it's that simple. It's tough luck buddy, learn to drive and get some snow tires next time.

Let the towing company worry about it. Fact is if they screw it up it's covered, if I screw it up the other guys insurance company pays for it and then they sue ME to recover the funds. Screw that.

It's chalk and cheese in these parts - but no, that's not what I'm saying.

I was refering to the comment about bumpers comming off...

We'll just have to disagree about that...

EU tow balls do not have bolts conecting the ball to the mount - is that where some confusion is comming from? EU approved towing balls are one-piece affairs.

Snatching with a chain?????!!!! We'll very definately have to agree to disagree with doing that. I'll bet a kinetic rope can apply way more force than a winch too.

Thats the trouble with facts, they do tend to spoil pet theories ;)

Grass ditch? That was a flat field! We have a wide variety of bogs available too, any depth you like!

aw, shucks xxxx

Such unbounded generosity- I think you may have missed the point about "bogged down to the chassis" - it means that the wheels are effectively not it contact with the ground, all four of them.

Bless you - is it catching?

Richard

On or around Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:51:25 -0500, Mike Romain enlightened us thusly:

which is considerably under the 19000lb or so you reckoned to pull with it. Bit of luck those figures they quote have a built-in safety factor then, isn't it. a bit like the ones for ball hitches, I expect.

another point - how do you attach straps/harnesses etc? what's the safe max load of the shackles etc. you may use?

On or around Wed, 4 Feb 2004 20:07:05 -0400, Chris Phillipo enlightened us thusly:

doesn't that depend how you do it? I suppose with a single pulley and taking the winch rope back to the winching vehicle, then a very strong strop or whatever from the pulley to the load, you're OK.

On or around Wed, 04 Feb 2004 08:44:52 +0000 (GMT), snipped-for-privacy@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") enlightened us thusly:

your loss :-)

besides, I think they do, they must have exemption.

On or around Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:01:39 -0500, Mike Romain enlightened us thusly:

if you mean high tensile bolts note that they're not much better in shear than mild steel.

the pin on the sliding hitch on the back of our disco turns out to be mild steel, if overloaded it's more likely to bend than to snap. Apparently. I made an adapter to mount NATO hitch at bumper height, which uses 2 such pins, and I've towed about 3-and-a-bit tons on it.

The hitch is probably rated to tow 3.5 tonnes, on it's original single pin. Not that I really like the design, mind.

I seem to remember you weren't quite up for it in 1982...

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Tim Hobbs at snipped-for-privacy@101ambulance-urine.net wrote on 6/2/04 6:20:

If you are refering to the Falkland War I hate to say this but according to my CO back in 1990 the US offered a compleat task force in support of UK forces.

Fortunatly it was declined as it was felt that the risk of collateral damage to Scotland was to great.

Yeh, right ;-)

Richard