Required in most states, a safety chain acts as a backup if your trailer becomes disconnected from your tow vehicle. Attach the end link of this zinc-coated steel chain to your trailer, and then hook the clevis hooks to loops on your hitch.
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California residents: click here
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi there, trailer owners. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at and showing you how to replace Draw-Tite Class V safety chains. They are gonna be great, not just for your bumper pulls, giving you plenty of access in most cases there, but they're also gonna be really great for your gooseneck trailers, giving you plenty of length to be able to reach from there, to your attachment from the bed of your truck, as well. You'll receive your chain, and this is what you'll get here. And you'll also have a 3/8-inch clevis here at the end, attaching to our chains. We've got a nice attaching hook here, some very big, heavy duty hooks that should work out very well on your larger openings on your hitches.
The individual links are gonna be 3/8 in diameter, and we can see that here. And you'll typically attach these using a clevis-type attachment. You could also weld these directly to the trailer or bolt them on as well, but the most common and quickest way is gonna be to use a clevis, and that's how we're gonna be showing you how to get these attached today. So now we can go ahead and get this installed. I've got the trailer hooked up so I can determine how much length I really need to be able to hook to my trailer, 'cause you may need that full 35, you may not need all that.
In this particular instance, we don't need all this right here, so we're gonna be choking up on our chain. And that's why I like the clevis attachment, because we can choose kind of any length on here to attach to. Your other options, if you we're gonna weld or something like that, typically it's pretty permanent. You have to usually cut off your excess and stuff like that. So with the clevis, we can just come down here to our trailer.
And so we've already got one side attached to our trailer here. This is the other side of our clevis right here. So to attach to your clevis, we're simply gonna remove the pin. We just push that over until it slid through the hole, we can then take our clevis pin out, and now we've got our attachment. These are designed to work with 3/8-inch diameter chains and you can get these here at etrailer.
So now you could, if you need the full length, you could slide that in there and then reattach it with your pin. But on ours, we don't need quite the full length. So we're just gonna get roughly the length we need. I've already checked out on this trailer and determined how much length I need. That ends up being 18 link's worth of chain, so. And there's our 18th link there, so that way it's gonna be the same length as our other side here. We'll then hold that up. And the way I determined the length is there's kind of just a little bit of a trial and error. I'd slide a link in here real quick. I wouldn't even put the pin in, just slide one in, and then I took it to the trailer and take a look at how much slack I had and then I'd adjust it from there, until I found an appropriate amount of chain. As we slide our pin through there, we can then put our cotter pin back in, make sure we bend those sides so they can't come off of there. And we do have some extra chains hanging on down here. Now you could cut this off if you want to, but what I usually like to do, and it's 'cause you never know when this might come in handy later down the road, and it's not gonna hurt anything to hang out back here. So we're just gonna take a zip tie and we're just gonna clip it and attach it right on down the chain. And we can just get rid of our excess there. And we'll just repeat that for the other chain to get that attached, and at this point, we're now ready to hook up to our trailer. So we've got one chain attached over here on the driver's side and the other chain attached here to the passenger side. When attaching your chains, you wanna make sure you cross those chains. So we're gonna put the one attached to the passenger side here and clip it over onto the safety chain loop on the driver's side, and then vice versa for the other side. And what that's gonna do is, crossing our chains here, you can see the X it creates, it's gonna act as a cradle. So in the event of a catastrophic disconnect, our trailer does come off, this X cradle here is gonna keep our coupler from digging down into the pavement. To be sure that your new chains are gonna last a long time here on your trailer, there is a zinc-plated finish over them, and that's going to help protect it against rust and corrosion, so we don't have to worry about links starting to rust and wear out at various areas and opening up on us. The chains are constructed of a carbon steel, which gives them a 15,000 pound working load limit. So with 15,000 pounds on each chain, we can add those together, we can support up to a 30,000 pounds of load behind us, if we've got two of these together like this. These chains are constructed of a grade 70 steel, so they're gonna be extremely durable, offering a limit of 26,400 pounds and that's per chain. So if we've got two chains together here, I mean, we can just haul a massive load with this and we've got the support we need behind us. So if you're looking for a set of heavy-duty replacement chains, ones that you know you can rely on in those emergency situations and you wanna make sure you've got enough length to potentially even have excess for other projects, this is a great option 'cause you've got a lot of length here. We've got a lot of strength here and the overall construction just seems like this is gonna be a very well-built long-lasting chain. And that completes our look at Draw-Tite's Class V safety chains..
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (7 Customer Reviews)
Required in most states, a safety chain acts as a backup if your trailer becomes disconnected from your tow vehicle. Attach the end link of this zinc-coated steel chain to your trailer, and then hook the clevis hooks to loops on your hitch.Very courteous and professional. Got me what I needed quickly and skillfully.
Great chain. Etrailer got me set up!
These appear to be very strong safety chains and I will feel very safe once they are connected.
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