Tow ball recovery

Gday,
I would have thought the only problem with using your tow ball would be the strap can slide off easy, with the shackle it cant?
Cheers

Hi Ross.
Looks like a time bomb ready to explode!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vince

Great that you don't have to remove the towing hitch. That should save about 20 seconds.

Ultimately all to force will be transferred through the receiver pin anyhow. Why introduce other elements which could fail?

Might be handy for towing light loads if you don't have the Hayman Reece style hitch, but I think I would still be reluctant to use it for a snatch recovery.

You can get an hitch insert for $40.00 that fits into a Hayman Reece Style reciever that is a fat block of 50x50 alloy with a 6.0 tonne rated shackle mounted horozontally through it.

DO NOT USE THE TOWBALL, I cannot believe people are even contemplating this!

Common sense is dead

1 Pull out the hitch pin.
2 Then remove (in one piece)
the hitch
the towball
the washer
the nut
the highly priced PoS
(no disassembly required - all items remain together for easy re-installation or , in the case of the last mentioned item, recycling at your next garbage collection day)
Five potential points of failure have now been removed.

3 Push the recovery strap up the receiver and re-install the the hitch pin.
4 Proceed

When re-installing after a few dozen goes, a brand new rated hitch pin could be utilised, if you've got a spare $5.

The web site below is a Pommie site and the self styled expert has many pages about 4wding with Landrovers.

Site Link

I have copied a few lines from one of his pages and you will see that he advocates using a tow ball to attach his tow strap, on another page he repeats the instruction. - bloody amazing ! I saw a 2006 date somewhere on the web site so it is not an ancient forgotten one.

And in case anyone is in doubt I am VERy firmly in the Don't EVER do it camp.

Are You Attached

by David Bowyer
Welcome to my new pages on recovery techniques. There is a lot to write about as the subject is huge, whether your interest is Greenlaning, Off-Road competitions or simply on-road towing.
Whenever you are attaching ropes with shackles for recovering or wire rope hooks for being winched, it is vitally important to make sure that you are securing to a proper recovery point fit for the job, using BZP (Bright Zinc Plated) 8.8 high tensile bolts.

I will always remember many years ago, during ice and snow, I passed a Reliant Scimitar that had slid off the road into the verge. I naturally stopped with our Range Rover and offered my help.

Out came my tow rope which I duly attached to the Range Rover's tow ball. I asked the Reliant driver where he wished me to attach the rope to on his vehicle as there was no front recovery point. He said "It's OK to secure the rope to 'that tube' under the spoiler". .........................

Shear strengh, the pin holding your square towbar tounge in is made of 16mm mild steel bar and fair enough it's in a double shear sitiation adding to strengh, a tow ball has a 25mm shaft in a sigle shear situation but I doubt you will even come close to the shear strengh.

A piece oh 40mm x 25mm thick mild steel with a 20mm hole on the centre has a shear strengh of over 25 tons.

Most snatch situations only generate a fource of about 1.8 to 2.5 tones at the recovery point.

Most tow ball will take over that 12.8 tons force with ease.

The main reason it's not recommended to use a tow ball is the chances of the strape comming off and also no manufacture will warrant the tow ball for that, proberly in the design criteria for a tow ball it would be designed to be used only as a coupling device that has a male and female part (socket and ball).

It's like a tyre on a car and you have a blow out for no reason, the chances of getting it replaced under warranty is very high, but use the same tyre for a swing base over a river and the tyre splits and you hurt your self BAD LUCK it was not designed for that....it's all to do with risk managerment and lowering the risk factor.

Regards Richard

Regards Richard

The only reason I can see not to use a tow ball as a recovery point is that the strap could slip off, I dont buy the augument that they are rated at only 2500 or 3500kg so you should use a recovery hitch or just the receiver pin. If you want to use that argument then what is the rated load of the towbar itself?
Chris

Post 44637 follows on from this. Anyone care to comment?