Bumper-mounted trailer hitch bracket for Jeep Wrangler TJ

Nonsense. FS 316.530 is a "noncriminal traffic infraction."

Yeah, horrible accidents happen. The weak-hitch-equals-death analysis makes a pleasant fictional scene, but unconvincing as to reality.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch
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Baloney.

The (Florida) law requires a hitch to be of "sufficient strength to pull all weight towed thereby". There is no "proper design" beyond that. The performance in a *collision* is of no legal significance. The liability is strictly with the at-fault driver(s).

By your "proper design" theory, you could be sued for driving a Hyundai instead of a Humvee. It's your fault you got hurt riding in a tinfoil car, not that somebody rear-ended you.

You can beef up your vehicle to take a meteorite hit, but it will be no more or less liability in a collision.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

Richard, I also note upon looking at the setup again, that the safety chains would attach to the same piece of metal that the hitch resides upon. If the weak link here is the strength of the bumper material, having the chains attached to the frame will help.

A while back in the thread, Mike painted a scenario where you might be rear-ended and the trailer tongue shoots through the Jeep's tub. I have actually had this happen to me. I have a pop-up camper towed by a Sienna. While waiting to make a left turn, a van hit the back of the trailer hard. Both the other van and the trailer were totaled. The tongue was indeed pushed into the back of the Sienna and the force vector was straight in line with the car's direction and also upward a bit. The upward tilt of the hitch ball surprised me a bit, but there it was. I had to unbolt the whole hitch and drop it to disconnect the trailer from the ball, as it was buried up in the upper bumper. The combination of the Class 2 hitch and then the frame of the Sienna absorbed it all, about $2500 worth of fixed damage to the Sienna. I speculate that if I had an equivalent of this hitch design, it would be likely that the trailer tongue would, in its upward vector, pierce the rear of the tub and head for people in the seats.

At least safety chains attached to the frame instead of the part that is (connected to at least) part of the failure might mitigate this. The chains need to be of plenty of girth as well.

In other words, if the bumper is the weak point, and the chains are attached to the metal attached to the bumper, the chains provide zero additional help. They would only help if the trailer jumps off of the ball. I advocate attaching them to the frame. Tomes

Reply to
Tomes

You aren't likely to convince him. He 'thinks' he is edUcated so he knows better.

I had some short blond in a large pickup ram into my utility trailer 3 times at a red light before I got out to see what the hell she was doing. She was so short, she couldn't see the trailer and just couldn't understand why she couldn't get closer to me.

That one wrecked a 'legal' trailer hitch and the tongue spear also wanted to come up over the bumper. My bumper was a 'real' one so the tongue didn't punch through it.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's Canadian Off Road Trips Photos: Non members can still view! Jan/06
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Tomes wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

I know, Mike. It's just that the safety chain placement was left out of this discussion and then I started to think about it when Bill posted about chains. It does sound like he is married to this design; maybe better chain placement, heavy chains **and correspondingly heavy hooks** (I forgot that part) might mitigate things....

That is a story of yours there that made me laugh in an 'oh fine' kind of way. I can just imagine that happening. "Will you stop that already??" Interesting that your trailer tongue had an upward vector like mine did. Thinking about it further, I am now betting that just about any trailer crash will do this as the hitting vehicle will be higher than the trailer frame, pushing down the trailer rear and thus raising the tongue spear. Gotta have a system that can control this.

It is not just what you are towing, it is also covering what another person's mistake can do. Tomes

Reply to
Tomes

If the OP uses safety chains he will wrap them around the bumper. I don't know how many times I have seen this type of "design". Safety chains are designed to cover operator error, in case the part that goes over the ball pops off, from not being tightened enough or from a shock load it can't stand. They are not designed to mitigate weaknesses in the actual hitch "design".

Earle

Reply to
Earle Horton

I had a similar thing happen to me. I was stopped at lights ( 4th/5th vehicle in line ) when there was a teriffic thump at my back. Got out to find trailer drawbar was bent like an inverted V and jammed on to towball. Tailgate and rear floor all mashed. I was hit by a brand new Ford Focus, 84km on the clock, which was hit by a Toyota Tarago which was hit by a Mazda ??? ( all stopped ) which was hit by a Holden Crapadore which did not stop when he should have done. Fortunately the only injury was bruising to a passenger in the Focus. The Focus was probably a write off, mashed bonnet, radiator,doors jammed etc. Not much damage to other vehicles as they all drove off. None to my Patrol, as I have a 3500kg rated Reece tow hitch fitted to it, which is fully used when I have a mini excavator and a small tractor on the car trailer. Damage repair quote & cheque for my box trailer was $486. I bought 100 x 50 box tube and a new hitch for $150 and welded on a new ( much better , stronger ) drawbar, hit the tailgate & floor with a BFH and, other than time spent on repair, am a free trailer + $36 ahead as it only cost $300 when I bought it (used).

Moral - good gear saves damage.

Alan in beautiful Golden Bay, Western Oz, South 32.25.42, East 115.45.44 GMT+8 VK6 YAB ICQ 6581610 to reply, change oz to au in address

Reply to
alan200

Definitely will? On my car? Possibly, but not definitely. Probability is something often misconstrued.

I can see reasonable scenarios that a weak hitch is *beneficial*. Strong enough for towing, but if your rig gets t-boned behind you, it breaks away without further involving the tow vehicle.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

Mike Romain proclaimed:

Yeah, sometimes one can almost appreciate why there are liability lawyers that at least sometimes help educate such fools.

Reply to
Lon

Sad thing is, if anything ever does happen with his homemade hitch, this thread will be exhibit A.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Sadder to live in fear of liability and lawsuits. The law is on my side.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

OK, well, good luck with that, and I hope that an "I told you so" situation never comes up. Because seems to me that "I know and I don't give a shit" is worse, to a jury, than "I didn't know".

Good luck.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Thanks. I don't expect it will. Feel free to gloat if it does. No doubt you'll be there, subpoenaed as a plaintiff witness.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

Hell, it doesn't seem like that many years ago that you would see trucks with bumpers made out of railroad rails or 4-6" diameter pipe... Considering the fact that railroad rails can weigh up to 155 lbs per yd, that made for a bit heavy bumper....

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I even remember seeing one made out of a railroad tie at one time...

You are definitely going the other way in your design... Have you considered possibly just replacing the stock bumper with something more sturdy? Even if I wasn't towing anything, I would want to replace the factory bumper... Bumpers should be able to withstand backing into something at a slow speed without any damage to them... Perhaps make yourself a bumper out of 4" steel I-beam? Here's the weights and dimensions for various sizes...

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All you would need to do is create a couple of brackets to mate with the existing factory attachment points... You could either weld a receiver hitch adapter underneath the I-beam or just drill a few holes and mount a plate similar to what you current have, but without the bend... I would put the I-beam in an orientation so that it looked like an 'I' instead of a 'H'... The mounting brackets would be welded to the inside channel of the I-beam and as such, supported on 3 sides, making the weld fairly sturdy...

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This would still be a fairly cheap solution... Not owning a TJ, I'm not familiar with the attachment points for its bumper... It is my professional opinion that one should design for at least as great as the weakest link in the existing system... Basically, there's no need to put a bank vault door on a room that has sheetrock walls...

Reply to
Grumman-581

This is a long thread. Earlier, I explained why that is not a good idea.

I want a sacrificial bumper to spare the frame in a moderate collision. The stock TJ bumpers are cheap and easily replaced. (Ridiculously easy; I've done it. Ridiculously cheap because of all the aftermarket adding-on yielding surplus stock bumpers on eBay.)

A bumper made of, say, 4 x 4 x 1/4 steel box beam would survive a moderate collision, but leave you with a bent frame.

Reply to
Richard J Kinch

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