Video Transcript for Comprehensive Review: CargoSmart D-Ring Tie-Down Anchor

Randy: Hey guys, it's Randy here at etrailer.com. Today we're going to be taking a look at a very basic D-ring from CargoSmart. This is the half-inch variety. It gives us a 3667 pounds safe working load limit and it offers a really nice large D-ring that will allow you to connect many different-sized straps regardless of the hook type, with the exception of maybe the flat hooks. These are very common and widely used in many different applications, whether that's flatbeds and trucks, utility trailers, enclosed trailers. You'll see these things just about everywhere.This is going to be extremely similar to all the other ones out there.

CargoSmart has made a good solid forged D-ring. It's going to have the clear or the yellow, rather, zinc finish on all the components. The hardware is not included. You'll have to provide your own, but 3/8-inch carriage bolts work out really, really well.Overall, I think it's going to do the job. It's again very similar to a lot of the other ones out there.

It's made for your medium to heavy-duty applications even though, of course, it will work with lighter stuff as well to get that secured.Now as far as usable space, we're looking at about 2-3/8 of an inch inside this way, about 2-3/8 of an inch inside this way. Our outside is going to be about 3-3/8 of an inch. Our bracket: From our mounting surface, this is going to stick up about one inch from your floor. Now, the only problem that I have with this type of tie down is that as we're traveling as our trailer bumps around, we can get some of that rattling effect. For most people, that's not going to matter.

For me, I like everything to be as quiet as possible. So for me, that would bug me a little bit. So if that does give you any kind of issues, if you don't like that, we do have one where our D-ring here would be removable. It's also from CargoSmart, same half-inch diameter. It actually uses the exact same plate here.

It's something that you can pull a pin and a clip, slide the pin out, and remove this to keep it inside; reduces the amount of stuff that you're going to have on your trailer to potentially trip over, and that one also offers the exact same capacity. So if I we're going to be putting them on my trailer, I would use the removable D-ring so I didn't always have them on there rattling. But again, some people that doesn't matter. It's going to be your decision to make.To begin our installation, we'll start with our bracket first. We're going to use this as our template so we know exactly where we want to drill our holes. We're going to be mounting ours to just the wood decking here on the trailer. Going to be using carriage bolts, flat washers, and nylon lock nuts. It's going to be a 3/8 diameter carriage bolt. They tend to sit in there really well, give you a nice clean install look. So, of course, we'll need to use our 3/8 drill bit. We'll just use that, mark our hole locations, and we'll get those drilled out. Now with our holes drilled out, we just want to set our D-ring down, place that right over top, and we're going to slide in our carriage bolts. Now if you notice, I flat spotted the side of that carriage bolt just slightly. As it comes down in hand, I think this gives us a better fit. That rounded edge doesn't want to interfere with that hump, which is pretty common with tie downs of this type that use this kind of bracket. So just a little tip: Put a flat spot on each one of those, and you really aren't going to have to worry about that.Now, securing these here you can see a couple flat washers, nylon lock nut. Those help spread the energy out over a greater area. We can just snug them down. At that point, you can see our tie down is going to be ready for use.Now as far as connecting goes, just about any type of strap that you have is going to work out really well. You're just going to clip that on. I think really the only ones that aren't going to work out with this will be the flat hook type. We just pull out the slack in our strap there, get it tightened down, secure off our excess.Now we do recommend always using straps in at least pairs, so keep that in mind. One thing I also like is that with this style you can see how we're pulling directly on it. That ability for it to kind of change angles means if we have our strap pulling higher, it's going to be pulling straight down. Here it's pulling straight to the side just like that. We don't have any of the cross pull inaudible 00:04:49.So overall, I think it's going to do an excellent job. It's really going to serve the purpose very well. If you don't mind a little bit of that rattling noise as you're heading down the road, I think this is a great choice..