How to Properly Secure Equipment to a Trailer
Hey it's Brock here with Rock Hill Farms And today we're going to talk about Properly securing a piece of equipment To a trailer In my videos I frequently haul a skid Loader or a tractor and I rarely show Myself attaching chains and that leads To a lot of questions about how I do it Or how you should do it so in this video I want to answer some of those questions First thing we're going to do is load The skid loader and chain it down and We'll talk about why I do it the way I Do it And how that applies to a tractor and Chains versus straps and all those sorts Of things the one comment I want to make Before I start is Don't take a video from a guy like me as The gospel truth these are points of Reference but you should always be Looking at the legal requirements by the Dot as your number one source of Information so let's get loaded up This video is primarily about attaching Your chains but there are a few things That I've got to say Because it's just too important to leave Out so if you're going to haul equipment You need to do a little bit of math at Least the first time you haul any new Piece of equipment To make sure you understand the weight Rating of your trailer
What is the weight rating of your two Axles minus the weight of the trailer So that you know How big of a machine you can haul then You have to know your tow capacity on Your tow vehicle And make sure all the numbers add up And the next thing is you have to make Sure you're properly centering the Weight on your trailer If I drive this skid loader all the way To the front then I'm putting way too Much tongue weight and you're going to Tear up your truck it's not made to have That much payload shifted onto the truck But if you go too far back it's even Worse because if if you put this skid Loader a foot too far back then it's not Putting any tongue weight down on your Rear axles and I've had it happen it's a Very dangerous situation you get uh Death swerve when you get up to about 55 Miles an hour so it's important that you Center your weight there are two ways That I can say to do this what I do my Gooseneck has a way safe tow hitch so Whenever I load this machine I can go up And look at the number and I know that I've got 14 000 pounds back here 15 of that 14 000 pounds should be Reading on my gauge The other way to do it is By measuring the squat on your truck bed And as you pull on you should actually
Be able to see your truck squat so that You know you're getting weight on there And One little thing about that is my truck Has a factory air ride and it doesn't Squat very much so it's kind of hard to Read off there best practice is to chain Your machine in four directions from the Four corners Depending on the weight of your Equipment and the state you live in you May or may not legally be required to Have four chains but it's just best Practice and When you get into bigger equipment it is Specifically required then you're also Required to put a strap or a chain Across any attachment even if it's Securely attached to the equipment what I try to do is have my two securement Points that are pulling forward Equal the weight of the machine And the two rear-facing equal the weight Of the machine so I'm actually rated for Double the weight of what I'm hauling I Picked this kid up with the four chains Four binders already has the hooks on Them To me there's a pretty good value to Have everything matched But keep in mind that everything's only As strong as its weakest component So this 3 8 chain Which all chains available in different
Types and grades But let's say hypothetically the chains Rated for six thousand pounds and then I Put a hook on it rated for three Thousand my entire setup Is now three thousand pounds This hook actually says five thousand Four hundred pounds the the entire setup Can't be more than five thousand four Hundred pounds so just be careful adding A component a buckle or a hook or Anything else to your chain can weaken The system all of my machines came from The factory with very nice tie down Points already on So there's cut out in the frame right Here Perfect fit for that hook Nice and easy so now I'm gonna take my Other hook go directly to the frame Up against a rail so obviously you're Not allowing it to slide These are 10 foot chains they've got Quite a bit of slack in them the amount Of slack does not have any bearing on This setup Obviously you don't want so much that It's hanging down or in the way okay now I've screwed out the thread so I've got Some adjustment And then I just hooked the binder at Each end Flip my ratchet over Add this little bit of extra chain here
It's going to lay in the bucket got this Ratchet where it can't go anywhere and We are secure the next thing I want to Say is it's important to know the Condition of the chain you're using So A lot of us might have a piece of chain Just laying around That was Who knows what grade of chain you can Tell by looking at it maybe what Diameter of chain it is but there's a Big variance in the strength of chain Based on that grading And once a chain gets stretched if I Take this chain and I'm stuck and I'm Trying to pull the skid loader out with The truck and I'm ramming that chain it Can be damaged and you don't even know It for a long time I used straps with The tractor in its original condition a Strap can be as strong as a chain and I Made the case that you were just as safe Using straps as chains as long as your Straps were highly rated the downside to A strap is say this strap is 3 300 pound Rating the Chain's 3 300 pound rating It's even right but if I put this strap Against a sharp edge then its rating now Becomes basically zero because if a Strap phrase It's ruined so if this strap had just a Little slit on it it's time to throw it Away the problem with the chain is
An individual link of a chain can get Just a little bit of stretch and now That link isn't six thousand pound rated That chain has a break point of two Thousand pounds but it's harder to tell With the chain so I dedicate a set of Chains to hauling and that's all I use It for let's go take a look at the back Tie down point so this is exactly the Same thing we've got this point right Here Sometimes I used to put my chain through And then hook the hook back to the chain But the way this is set up that's not Really necessary I do the same thing With the other end here go to the frame And that's all there is to it this is Not a complicated or time consuming Process You're looking at about two minutes for Each of the four straps I went on to a John Deere skid steer Forum and I ask everyone how they do This to make sure I was telling you Commonly used practice And everybody said they used this tie Down point there was one guy who made a Point that on a technicality Chaining the boom may not be considered Chaining the machine and these Tie down points are on the Boom so he Made the point that there is a bar Right under the bucket that I can reach It's right
Right here There's another bar and you can go Directly to that bar come over the top And technically you're probably better But I'm just showing you the way I do it Now the last thing on this in the real World I would say there's no chance this Bucket just falls off the machine I mean You're you're trusting the locking Mechanism on this bucket to hold when You're moving or handling thousands of Pounds of material so it's not going to Just fall off So a lot of guys will say well I don't Need to strap the bucket down the point Is regulations say You're supposed to And it goes for a bush hog on a tractor Or any other number of things that and Potentially what if you made a mistake And you didn't close the locking Mechanism so we're gonna go ahead and Put a strap across this bucket Now I've got a strap across the bucket Because you're supposed to do that Strapping the bucket is actually a Little bit awkward because it doesn't Have a good place to do it but it is Something flat like a bush hog it's Makes more sense to different ways to Strap it But it anyway I hope this video was helpful to you Check your DOT regulations and if you're Wondering why there's not a chain on
Here I'm not actually going anywhere I Replaced my chains and binders Today's video was about me making sure That these links of chain were going to Work and just talking about how to do This I'll put links on the screen to More of our videos and I'll see you next Time
