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Hey, this is Mike with asktractormike.com. Several viewers have wanted me to do
a video on how to properly secure a tractor to a trailer if you're gonna move
your tractor around. It's taken me awhile to get the information together
to do this I wanted to give you good information I've studied up on the
regulations I met with Missouri Department of Transportation officials,
spent a day with them and there's a lot of information to share and I apologize
for doing this to you but I'm gonna break it down into four videos and if
you're going to move your tractor on the open road on a trailer, I urge to watch all
four of them and the first one is going to talk about the way you select the
chains and binders to secure the tractor to the trailer because there are some
mathematics you must do in order to get the adequate amount of pull on the
chains and the binders. We're going to talk about chains and binders today but those are
just two components of securing a tractor to a trailer that you need to
know about and, stay with me guys, this is kind of dry information but at the
end of the video I'm going to tell you about the third component that most people don't
even know about. First off let's talk about chains. You're securing a
tractor to a trailer you're gonna get chains and you need to get at least grade 70 or
above chain and its marked on the hook this is G70 right here which means
grade 70. Now I want to put a little plug in for Lowes, I don't get paid by Lowes but
I found this chain, it was a twenty foot 5/16" chain at Lowes for
37 bucks which is pretty cheap for a heavy chain so that's what I got. Now on the chain
package, I'm just going to pull the label off
and I ripped it. Here it shows the rated capacity of the chain at 4,700
pounds that's the WLL or working load limit of the chain, that's the maximum it can
hold- 4,700 pounds remember that number. Now the second component in securing a
tractor to a trailer is a "boomer" and here's a boomer this is a ratchet style boomer. Most
boomers will say on the handle and I've got it upside down right here, the
working load limit of the boomer and this has a WLL of 5,400 pounds now you
take the the lesser of the two so in other words the binder, or the boomer, can
secure more than the chain. Alright, the third component is the place you
attach it on the trailer and we're either looking at a a rub rail like this one
has or a d-ring which is a specially designed bracket just for securing
equipment to a trailer or in my case I went through a bracket that is designed
to hold stakes if you put sides on the trailer it's also designed to to secure
tractors or equipment to the trailer. Now that will have a WLL or working load
limit rating as well and most people don't know that, most trailer people
don't know that, the people that sell them, I've sold trailers and I didn't know that but that
has a limit.
Now here's how you calculate your working load limit and whether you've
got enough chain and binder rating and trailer rating to secure your tractor
let's say our trailer securing point was rated at six thousand pounds,
our boomer or binder at 5,400 pounds and our chains at 4,700 pounds. You take the
lesser of those three numbers which is the chain, at 4,700 pounds. And we're gonna put
four chains on the load so we're going to multiply 4700 by four which gives us
18,800
pounds now we divide that number by two which gives us 9,400 pounds as long as
our load weighs less than that we're within compliance. This is a little
complicated it's a little long and dry I appreciate you staying with me.
Hey I survive on web traffic if you'd like to share this video with other
folks that would be awesome I'd be honored if you subscribe to my YouTube
channel and also have a Facebook page it would be awesome if you'd like it thanks
for watching