Chris Sunkin

I'll see if I can shoot one this weekend. It's nothing special- On my trailer, I have the tongue tube that runs about 8' past the connection where the left and right side rails come to a Y at the front. Behind the hitch connector, the chain just wraps around and it's connected in a loop with a shackle. On the other end, after setting the pintle ring on the hook, the chain goes down and around the main tube of the hitch. I use a grab hook- they're a little different than an open hook. They have a narrow slot that's only large enough to slide one link in. They won't move. I always do a couple twists before hooking to keep it snug.

The only downside is that the chain will wear the paint off of that portion of the trailer tube and off the hitch. I got some of that super-heavy 3M clear film and put it on there. It lasts about a season.

Magic Medicine

My father in law had this happen to a truck he had. Seems to be a bigger problem than many people realize!

pullmytrigger

To be fair........my comment wasnt particlarily aimed soley at the stronger chain modification.......it was at modifications and practices outside the installation manual in general.......like installing the safety chains in a spot other than shown in the manual........but hey Mr Nick DUDE......your a grown man......you can do whatever you want.

The "its not natural gas" comment is a total joke!!......you wanna hear a worst case scenario story??........A tractor trailer pulled out in front of one of my best friends girlfriends......

she slid underneath the open spot in the trailer and was very nearly decapitated.......from that moment on shes been a quadrapalligic.......seeing the grave nature of the accident her car was loaded onto a flatbed at the scene and taken to a LAB! (insurance co. term) and examined for two full weeks!! and another week to write a report.......this to see if the cars mechanical condition was up to snuff and did not contribute to the accident........this was at the request of the truckers insurance company as they knew they would be paying out big time and were looking to deflect the blame......at this worst case scenario do you think they would find any "modifications" you did to your hitch/ trailer and run with them as far as they could?......I think so.......the car was 6 or 7 years old but it passed.......and yes they have paid out big time.......she moved into a new and I mean NEW house that is all wheelchair accesible, elevator included, has a brand new Dodge wheelchair van,people there 24/7, grief coucelling and coping classes for her 2 boys the whole works.......worst case littigation is no joke........their fine tooth comb approach to liability in this case is JUST like a natural gas incident.......

you would not believe how many times contractors, guys with years of experience would install pieces of equipment improperly, clearly in violation of the manual and truly believe it is a better way than the manufacture suggests........by and large these changes would simply result in nusince trip outs of the unit but in several cases they were truly dangerous......9 times out of 10 in my experience........you DO NOT know more than the manufacture.

but you can do what you want DUDE!

Joe92GT

You may not know more than the manufacturer of a controlled, tested and certified product. Anything to do with natural gas I'm sure has all kinds of certifications and tests.

A lot of trailer manufacturers do not. The big ones do, everyone else just copies them. There are very few controls and certifications for them. Sometimes its easy to see where something is a bad design. Other times it takes engineers.

What about state weight laws, recommended GVW, GCWR,and cdl requirements.. I'd imagine DOT will look at those a lot faster than safety chain modifications.

Chris Sunkin

Trigger,

I'm going to agree with you on your "installer modifications" point. I have several field techs and over the years, I've had some of the "I know beetter" and the "it's good enough" and the "those instructions are overkill" types come and go. You shouldn't be making things up as you go if you lack the qualifications. At the same time, trailer hitches aren't advanced vehicle engineering, nor are they delivering explosive gases. Any good ME with professional certifications (PE) can do the basic calculations on the design. A certified welder can fabricate it, most likely to a much more precise degree than the kind of welder that a hitch company has on their production line. A good fab shop is going to be able to provide all of this to you. I'd never suggest having Bubba the Welder do it.

thisistank

Well, to my pleasant suprise I found Putnam Hitches sent me a brand new hitch.

I must say, I have to seriously give props where they are due. One phone call explaining the problem. They asked me my name and address and in less than a week the new hitch was shipped. Pretty amazing considering they didnt ask to see the other hitch, ask for any paperwork on it or any other information. If anyone has a Putnam hitch, rest assured they are a great company to deal with.

ACTIVESHACK

That's pretty impressive consiidering how most customer service goes these days. Glad it worked out for you and your rig didn't get messed up.
Did they even ask for you to ship the broken one back ?

jafo

Chris- please enlighten me- I was not aware of any aftermarket hitches available for the Excursion due to the fact that the factory hitch is a structural part of of the subframe and fastened in places with tamper-proof high-grade fasteners. There is no hitch listed for the Excursion on Putnam's website.
I think I rember Nort had a Titan installed by some shop on an Excursion quite a few years ago.
I have another X now, and would love to upgrade the hitch (correctly, of course)
Jim

thisistank

Yea, I'm blown away by the customer service. I'm going to call the guy I talked to (Sean) back tomorrow and thank him. And no, they didn't even want the old one back. Didn't ask where I bought it, didn't ask for the receipt, didn't ask when it was bought, just sent the new one out within a week. I also believe Putnam makes the highest tow rating hitch on the market due to the fact I couldn't find one with a 16k rating anywhere when shopping. After this experience, I would recommend them to everyone. You just dont see service like that these days.

Chris Sunkin

My mistake- not Putnam, PullRite. http://www.pullrite.com/pdfs/2008%20...on%20Chart.pdf

I looked at my wife's Ex in the garage- it still has the factory hitch on it. It's just bolted on like any hitch. I do seem to remember they had to take the fuel tank out when they did mine but I don't remember why.