Thanks for the info mate, often wondered about this particular question
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Death By Towballs and Hitch Receivers left to Rust.
click on this pic and consider your receiver.
Attachment 60552
That would be a boat trailer for sure and that receiver must have had a crack in it or something and allowed it to fill with salt water.
Even so though, it is a bloody good reminder. I would say that driver was very lucky he wasn't travelling at any great speeds when that came off!
Surely you would have noticed that kind of damage earlier?
i couldnt get my towball hitch out recently when i was out 4wding(i wanted to do a recovery but we had to work out other methods out. anyway, turns out the pic was rusted as fck and the hitch had swollen with rust and just wouldnt budge. it took me a week of soaking wd40 followed by attaching the towbar to a VERY short chain which was wrapped around a telegraph pole and little bit by little bit gently nudging it out. needless to say i replaced the culprit and cleaned out all the left over rust!!!
You'd be surprised how often they are like that. When my mate bought his GQ it did not have a pin through the tow receiver but the previous owner used it as a tow vehicle... the rust was keeping it in and my mate had big troubles trying to get it out. The tow bar had to come off in the end and oxy and press sorted it out.
Wow! Better to remove hitch when not in use and dry it off if wet or after washing. The one that broke looks like it's made of cardboard.
Hey guys, another question..
Tree trunk protectors, are their rating's use when used end to end? It's sort of hard to explain, but around the tree, isn't the strap in effect doubled up?
Just wondering if it's safe to use a tree trunk protector as a short winch extension strap.
No need to double it up? As in, the two eyes of the strap on one end, and a just looped through the strap?
Or fine to just go one eye to winch hook, other eye to shackle elsewhere type thing? Or are both ways fine?
I only ask as I did a double line pull yesterday, found myself a bit short on winch rope, so had tree trunk protector around tree to a shackle, with another tree trunk protector with one eyelet on that shackle, other eyelet on a snatch block. Just want to make sure this is ok to do in future..
Being new to the group and new to 4x4 the information provided is a great help and very informative
Thanks