snatch straps and tow bars

No problem using a snatch strap attached to a tow bar Brian. But looping it over a tow ball is a big no no.

Remove the Tow Hitch and feed the looped end of the strap into the Receiver, securing it with the original Hitch Pin through the loop.

The other end of course should be attached to rated recovery hook or points, with 4T bow shackles.

I know of no generally available 4wd vehicle that has factory fitted 'recovery' hooks that I would trust. They are either tie-down points for transportation or the hooks are unsafe. I have been involved with the testing to destruction of several brands of hooks and unless they have a 'rated' number stamped on the side do not trust them. If your tow bar has three attachment bolts on each side and the pintle hook has rated bolts AND nuts I am pretty sure that you will be ok using the tow bar. All bolts should have rated nylock or similar type nuts or have spring washers under the nuts.

Tow hook attachment bolts should be high tensile stamped 8.8, 10.9 is also ok (any higher then 10.9 and the bolts are to brittle for this application). If the chassis rails are less then 3mm thick then you should double plate each side and use three attachment bolts, that is 2 through the hook, doubling plates and chassis and the third bolt through the doubling plates and chassis. These bolts do not just locate the hook onto the vehicle they also have a clamping effect. Inside the chassis you need 'crush' tubes, these can be short lengths of pipe that stop the sides of the chassis bending inwards as you tighten the bolts. "C" chassis section rails should be turned into a box section.

Have used snatch straps on my towbar recoverying other 4wd's from deep sand and mud. Just loop the strap AROUND the towball, and no worries. haven't broken one yet.

Thanks everyone for your help. The pintle hook does have a lock on it and is a very heavy looking thing in comparasion to an ordinary tow ball. It is attached to the bar with four 8.8 bolts. I could not imagine a snatch strap ever breaking it but I am still reluctant to use it. I agree with the comments about the danger of using a tow ball and, even though mine is much heavier, I am sure there will be plenty of members of my club who would not like to be on the end of a strap attached to it.

This leaves the question of how to attach the strap in a manner that will keep other club members happy.

The brackets that I think could be for safety chains consist of two 50 x 70 x 10 mm strips of flat steel spaced 45 mm apart. They have a 16 mm steel pin through them with the pins ends welded to the brackets. The brackets are fully welded all round to the 600 x 90 x 8 mm bar reinforcing strip. 4.7 ton bow shackles will fit onto these brackets. Once again I could not imagine a snatch strap ever pulling these brackets off, particular with the load spread evenly between both sides. The problem is without getting an engineer's report on it, I could never be sure.

Another alternative is to remove the pintle hook and fit some kind of alternate strap mount to it. I have a couple of old tow bars and I could easily cut off a section of the 20 mm or so thick part that the tow ball fits onto and weld it at 90 degrees to the centre of a heavy flat plate that bolts onto the hook bolts. I could weld a couple of additional triangular shapped reinforcing plates to each side and fit a large bow shackle to the hole in it. I am sure that would be strong enough and, as I have worked as a welder before and completed TAFE welding courses, I will have no trouble doing welds that will not break.

A third possibility would be to find some pieces of 8 to 10 mm coil plate, which is the type of steel the side plates of the bar are most likely made out of, and weld small plates to the ends of the side plates so they stick out about 80 mm past the cross bar. They could have about a 20 mm hole drilled through them with bow shackles fitted to them This would mean you pull directly off each end of the bar with the cross tube complete with its pintle hook acting as nothing more than a spreader bar.

Has anyone got any better ideas?

Brian

Does your pintle hook look like this:

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because it has the 'locking' bit attached already. The chromed pin actually locks the top (black looking thing) to the towball so it locks the snatch strap to the towball. Forgive my very technical terminoligy ;-p

I'm also fairly sure that the towballs on pintle hooks are rated higher then the standards towballs used in tow bars. Considering your pintle hook is rated to 3.5t I would snatch off that.

Besides, the pintle hook is a great visual deterrent to stop tail gaiters getting too close.