Trailer Tie Down Point Question

[surfran]

Dirthauler,

Thanks for the reply, and the good ideas as options to consider. I am just trying to come up with the best option. I will know more by Sunday as I am going to pick it up tomorrow. Of course we have to spend the night at the mother in laws, so I won't get time this weekend to do anything with it. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif But then again that is how I got the misses to finally aprove.......hey we can visit your mother when I go to buy it /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[tracdoc]

Hi surfran,

Another option you might want to consider is E-series track in 11 or 12 Ga. These are widely used in the cargo industry, and also for car hauling. A lot of our car racing friends use and swear by them, and we like them so much, we had them installed on our new race car hauler. Like the "rub rail" mentioned earlier in this thread, E-track lets you secure a tie down point anywhere along the length of the E-track, rather than being limited to one point choice in each corner of the trailer.

E-track can be installed after-market. It has incredible yield strength. You would need two strips of horizontal E-track. Since it is bolted every 2 inches along it's length, it can carry substantial loads, and load ratings are generally given by the rating of the specific piece of hardware/strap/chain used in conjunction with the track.

Some specs on logistic track can be found {HERE}. You can purchase track and hardware from a wide variety of places. You might want to look at e-Trailer {HERE} RJay's {HERE}, M&R {HERE}. I've bought stuff from each of these vendors and they are top drawer.

E-track is pretty reasonably priced, especially considering what it can do as opposed to a 2- or even 4-bolt single tie-down D-ring. Hope this helps...

 

[surfran]

tracdoc,

Thanks, I had been looking at this earlier tonight and this morning some. I really like the idea of it, but I thought it was only rated for 2000 lbs. and I wasn't sure how often it had to be secured.

Even with that I was thinking it would be the cats meow to have it installed for tie down of other loads not even without the Kubota on. Still may invest in it, but will probably do some more research as I didn't go to any mfg site so didn't see any mounting information.

 

[tracdoc]

surfran,

Good idea to do more research for your particular application. I quite agree that E track would be a good supplement to be able to trailer all sorts of odd-shaped and varied loads.

From my own reading, and from trailer mfr, the 2000# figure, is the nominal working load, not the maximum {HERE} Most of the clip-in hardware has a max load of 6000# (same as a good quality S/S swivel D-ring), so track and hardware have matched load capacities. This is, of course, predicated on proper installatin of the track with hardened bolts on 2" centers, both edges of each track, for its entire length. That's a lot of bolts!