Tow Bar Breakaway Fix

[DavidL]

Connecting my Jeep Toad to my RV, I observed the tow bar pivot bolt was a single point of failure that got me thinking...

On same trip, my new friend from HOOTs trip had an incident on the way home where his tow bar pivot bolt snapped allowing his Truck Toad to ram into the back of his beautiful Newmar. The emergency cables did their job by not allowing the truck to run away, but the damage was done to both RV and Truck. Thankfully no one was hurt and just put some delay (and cost) into the trip.

Came up with a stop gap solution. I had some 5/16" stainless steel cable left over from a boat hoist restring. And had two wire retainers for same cable.
Wrapped the clean cut end with electrical tape to keep it from unraveling, and more importantly to keep me from getting poked while wrastling with it.
I made two wraps around the joint. Spread the wire across the available gaps in the brackets so that the wire didn't get in the way of any pivoting.
Since this cable is rated for 9000 lbs of stretch, 2 wraps (4 lines) should be plenty strong enough.
total time invested: 10 minutes. Cost = 0$ (I had the stuff as all packrats do) All stuff available at HomeDepot.

No I don't intend on testing it!!!

More importantly, you might want to inspect your bolts to ensure it's in good health before your next trip. I would buy a spare bolt anyway.

Post updated with Kenny's "Ram" picture and the offending bolt. My hip pocket guess is that is $4K of damage.

 

[CaptainGizmo]

I've seen issues with that bolt as well.

Regarding your friend's truck running into the rear of the RV, this happened to another friend as well. The problem, there, was he did NOT feel the need for a supplemental braking system, eg. AirForceOne.

When people don't have a SBS, you run the risk of just what your friend had happen. The breakaway cable is intentionally SHORTER than the safety cables. So...IN THEORY...as the TOAD breaks off, the SBS will be triggered and, thus, pulling the TOAD AWAY from the back of the RV as you come to a stop.

Like you, I don't intend to test that theory though!

Amazing how we find these "single points of failure", yet others will swear they've used the same tow-bar and plates since the dawn of time.

 

[Swipular]

I'm the guy David is talking about.

I do have a braking system however, the truck never broke away from the coach so the energy breaking never kicked in.

This happened after coming down an off ramp and turning onto to service road. The bolt broke during the turn and the truck rolled into the coach. We were traveling at low speed at the time due to the turn so the damage was not too bad.

Kenny

 

[DavidL]

I've seen issues with that bolt as well.

Regarding your friend's truck running into the rear of the RV, this happened to another friend as well. The problem, there, was he did NOT feel the need for a supplemental braking system, eg. AirForceOne.

When people don't have a SBS, you run the risk of just what your friend had happen. The breakaway cable is intentionally SHORTER than the safety cables. So...IN THEORY...as the TOAD breaks off, the SBS will be triggered and, thus, pulling the TOAD AWAY from the back of the RV as you come to a stop.

Like you, I don't intend to test that theory though!

Amazing how we find these "single points of failure", yet others will swear they've used the same tow-bar and plates since the dawn of time.

Well, on same HOOTs trip, I got 1 mile from my sticks and bricks and a pickup pulled up alongside to tell me that my Toad brakes were smoking down the road.

I put RV into Park, and sure enough the TOAD brake booster was full on. Another look and I find that I laced the runaway cable too tight (maybe the tow bar arms weren't fully extended) and the first tight turn yanked it loose applying the brakes. I have a monitor in the RV but that's obviously not apparent enough (I have a fix on the way). No idea from the way the RV drove that there was this Toad yanking away. Anyway, I let the brakes cool down to ensure they were free rolling and continued on.

Glad that Pickup truck pulled over and that my light was Red to allow him to tell me.

When I got back from HOOTs, I did a brake job of front rotors / pads. They were sorely needed. $250 and two hours labor.