Video Transcript for Fulton F2 Retractable Ratchet Transom Tie-Downs Review

Hi everyone. Aiden here at the Etrailer. Today we're gonna be taking a look at these Fulton F two transom tie down straps. Now these are gonna be a retractable ratchet strap that hows up all in here, mount permanently to your trailer, and then give you a really quick and easy way to tie down the back end of your boat. Let's check 'em out. There's gonna be two levers on the housing the one out in front that will control the ratcheting, and the one that tucked behind it to control the release.

When releasing, that'll let you unhook it. That strap will just slide right back into the housing for the storage position. And then when we're ready to hook up, just grab it out, hook it up and tighten it down. It doesn't take much since it does pull itself tight to get it nice and tight. The strap itself is going to be two inches wide, and can be up to 43 inches long so it's plenty a length to reach from the bottom mounting point up to our tie down point on our boat.

The S hook on the end has a vinyl coating so it's gonna help protect against rust and corrosion keeping all that metal covered up but also protect our boat. If it maybe bumps into it, it's not contacting bare metal. (strap rattles) So this version of the strap has an 833 pound safe working load limit with a break strength of 2,500 pounds. So it's gonna be a little bit stronger than some of the other options from Fulton. It has a zinc construction which is going to be nice and rust and corrosion resistance.

You don't have to worry about it fading or getting damaged over time. Being in contact with water. This is designed to be a permanent installation, and it comes with all the hardware you need to get it installed which is really nice. You don't have to provide your own. Getting it installed is really easy.

You just have to find the mounting location on your trailer and mount it up. In some cases you might benefit from a mounting bracket. We're using a mounting bracket today from Boatbuckle just to get our ratcheting mechanism here at a better spot. Make sure that the strap is running straight up to the tie down point, and isn't twisted or getting bound up over any hard edges. It can just help prolong the lap life of your strap and make for an easier install, and easier use over time. So check out how we did it. Starting off the insulation you wanna get your old strap removed. Ours today is definitely looking worse for wear, seen better days so we're just gonna get that taken off and tossed off to the side cause we're not reusing that for anything. Next, for our installation, we're gonna actually be utilizing this bracket from Boatbuckle. What this is gonna do for our new transom straps if I can grab it real quick here is rather than having it sideways at this mounting point and potentially hitting the corner of our boat or interfering somewhere with our trailer, we're going to use this mounting bracket on the mounting location to actually position this so that the strap is actually outward a little bit, and coming onto that tie down point a bit more straight. This isn't required for the installation depending on your trailer and where your tie down point is, but for us that's going to work out best. It comes in a kit of two and has all the hardware included with the kit. If you decide to go this route, like I mentioned there's a couple different ways you can mount this up. I don't wanna block our taillight at all, so for us I don't think mounting it here is going to be a good idea just because then the strap's gonna be out here. I mocked it up on the other side and found that the longer tab for our trailer on the inside is gonna actually be pretty okay and we don't have any sort of clearance issues. So then I can take the included hardware with that bracket get it attached through my mounting hole of choice, and installed with a wrenching socket. Again, this part isn't required for the strap, but depending on your trailer you might wanna pick this up. (power tool zapping) (wrench rattling) With it mostly tightened down. I can get it into position. I want to actually angle down a little bit because the final product will have the strap mounted here coming up at a bit of an angle And I just wanna make sure that's gonna clear, and right there it's looking pretty good for us so I can fully tighten this down now. (power tool rattling) Now our new strap also comes with hardware, which is great so we don't have to worry about providing our own. Now mounting it up will be a little tricky just because of our particular situation. We're gonna take our bolt and washer, pass it through the inside of the strap right here Put it through the mounting hole that we chose to use on our bracket and secure it with the lock nut on the other side. And you can kind of probably see right now what our issue is gonna be. And it's really just clearance because there's not a whole lot of room on this backside for the nut. So we're gonna have to get a wrench around there and then pull up on the strap, the handle right here to get a socket on. And for that it's helpful for us right now to actually be utilizing an extension. I'm gonna get it mostly tightened down, reposition it, and then fully tighten it down whenever I'm in a better spot. (power tool rattling) (wrench rattling) So with it mostly tightened down it'll help hold itself in place. I can adjust it however I want and fully secure it. (power tool rattling) Now it's that fully tightened down, I can get that socket out of there, and test out the positioning of our strap which is looking pretty darn good. Everything's nice and straight. It's not hitting on the corner of the boat, it's very close. But this gets us a little bit of distance out from our mounting point on our trailer and gets us nice and secure to tighten down without putting any strange pressure on the strap itself. And that'll do it for our look at these retractable transom straps from Fulton. Thanks for watching.