Recovery Points on Bull Bars on vehicles fitted with air bags

would depend on how, where, fit a winch, and you have a rated recovery point on the front then ;-)

G'day Johnny,

I have a 99 Jackaroo which I fitted an ARB steel bullbar to. These bars have a couple of strengthened eye holes down low and the ARB guy told me that they are commonly used and are ok for recovery, BUT ONLY for NON air bag trucks.

He said this is becoz in the event of a front collision the bar is air bag compatible becoz of the deformable cradle which attaches the bar to the truck--- so if you use the bar as a recovery point the cradle will probably deform to some extent & so possibly affect it's purpose.

Other more learned people may agree or not agree.
cheers

THOSE EYES ON THE FRONT OF ARB BULLBARS ARE NOT RATED FOR RECOVERY!!!!!!
they are for the attachment of a hi lift jack adaptor.

the bottom of most arb bullbars has on either side 2 x holes which happen to match up perfectly to the recovery hooks that arb sell. this is where i fitted them on the lux.

i havent snatched a vehicle from the front but i have yanked several BIG trees pretty bloody hard (flat stick low reverse)...

to date i havent had an airbag blow up in my face.

Why not put em on the chassis? Thats where mine are on a Patrol. in fact I bought a GQ one and fitted it on the other side and so I now have two - more useful than you'd think

Most late model vehicles are relatively light in the chassis these days to meet impact absorption and airbag trigger targets.
You probablyy should use a chain attached to both chassis rails/recovery points behind the crumple cans.
I've seen a few 100 series that employ this method, distributes the load to both rails avoiding chassis damage.
Personally I feel that too many people snatch way too hard in situations that would be better utilising a winch.
Gone are the days when most 4wd's had heavy duty chassis and recovery points.

Johnny.
To understand the problem its best to look at the air bag trigger design. The normal air bag trigger is placed under or near the drivers seat and is set to trigger the air bag if it is acelerated at more than a preset no of g's [2-4] for 1or2 milliseconds, so what you must ensure is that you dont give a sudden jerk on the body. From the above you can see that its not where you attach but the way you recover that matters. Charging with a chian is a nono, but using a snatch strap with gentle run up is fine. If you are paranoid about blowing your bag you can unplug the trigger during recovery, but please remember to plug it in agian afterwards, you should get a srs fail light on if you do. Eric.