Video Transcript for Comprehensive Review: Durabilt Safety Chain Connectors for 3/8" Chain

Hi there, haulers. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at Durabilt's line of Hammerlock locking links. And here you can see what they look like when they're installed. They do have a nice kind of a burgundy powder coat on them so it does make it look nice, helps protect it against corrosion. The quick links I do find to be a bit easier to use. But obviously, that thing is not gonna come off of there.

Now, the likelihood of this coming unscrewed is pretty low but it potentially could happen. But if you kind of barrel down on it with a wrench or something, usually you can get those to stay pretty well. Now, what the customer did have that I would not recommend is one of these. He had some pretty big, heavy-duty ones on there, sure. And it probably has a lot of working load limit power over some of the other styles with how big they are, except the only problem was this was the only one that actually had a pin in it.

The other one that was just kind of dangling by the width of it and it was ready to fall at any point. So, this style here does tend to come unscrewed a little bit more easily. I mean, you can put a kind of a screwdriver or some tool in there and torque down on it, but this actually is completely separate. So, unlike the quick link ones here where if it does unthread, you know it's still fairly secure. But with this one, there's just a much bigger opening.

The whole thing could fall out. The nut on this just kind of screws down so it's still fully attached to itself. This pin here, the one that it fell out of here, I mean it's 70 miles an hour, the size of this pin, if that bounces up, I mean that could really do some damage to some vehicles or a person. So, I just recommend kind of staying away from these. These are a little bit more dangerous even though they do have a lot of oomph.

I like them for your slower stuff, for tractors and things like that. You know, on the farm, this stuff's cool but out on the road, you want something a little more secure that's not gonna fall off, you're not gonna lose something. So, I would stick with one of these. This is probably the most secure. This one's just a lot easier to utilize. And you actually have to drive the pin in through this little mechanism to lock it in place. And it is not an easy thing to drive in. It is actually pretty difficult to get this to drive through there. That's why I got a little bit of grease here to help things move along a little bit easier. You can get these in different weight ratings. One of these here, we're using 3/8 for this particular version with a 7,100 pound working load limit. You can get these in different sizes though, from as small as a 5/16 size up to a 5/8 size. So yeah, 5/16, 3/8, half-inch, 5/8, and each one is gonna have its own specific weight rating depending upon its size. Obviously, the larger ones are gonna have a higher weight rating than the smaller ones. We're using the 3/8 ones here today though, cause the trailer that our customer's using here, this is gonna be more than enough for this trailer to keep him safe and a little bit of headroom for if he wants to upgrade in the future. Now, I will say these quick links here, this is another option that you can use for these weird, especially on these GM or Chevy hitches, you can see they're kind of weird. The chains there almost don't have any good way to really latch in there. I mean that one I'm able to get in there but you can see the end has kind of been damaged a bit. Let's try our other chain. And I mean we are able to get that in there too. It's just not nearly as easy as it will be with these Hammerlocks here. And in the instance that you've got one of these, so this is another option. You can see that this'll slide on there and that'll thread up. Now, this here is gonna be probably the easiest option to use. It's not gonna look quite as nice though as the Hammerlocks. The Hammerlocks are also gonna have a bit of a pivot in them so it just kind of sits better than this is gonna sit in here. But these guys are pretty reliable and very easy to use. These are in different sizes though, so you do wanna make sure if you're going with this option, that you do get the appropriate size for the right working load limit that you need for your trailer. Let's go ahead and show you how the Hammerlocks installed now that we've kind of compared it to the quick link. So, we'll take one side of this. That will slide around on there and then we can take our other end here. I'm gonna just, a little bit of grease on the end of it there just to help it slide together a bit easier. We're gonna come up here to the trailer side, I mean to the hitch side, slide the two pieces together, slide that in there and then we can pull it back out a little bit, pull the pin back out, drop in the center piece and then just drive it on home. And when I say drive it on home, I mean drive it on home. It is not gonna be easy. All right, almost there. A little bit more. Try to make it even on each side. And that looks pretty good. And that pin is gonna be in there because the center of that pin we just drove through is a slight smaller diameter than the two outer pieces so that's why we get nice free movement. The pin will slide back and forth ever so slightly. You can see that I can push it a little bit that way, a little bit that way, but it is not gonna be able to come out of there. You saw how hard it was to drive in. So, the likelihood of it just falling out with how difficult it is to drive in is pretty slim to none. And now, we've got our chains installed. We can now hook up to our trailer a little bit more easily. It will accept a lot more style of safety chains than before. You don't necessarily have to have the biggest chain that'll have a big opening to work with this style. It'll work with a lot smaller ones as well now. So, there we go. And that completes our look at Durabilt's line of Hammerlock locking links..