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Whoa there, let's not be dissing Matt's off-road recovery! My favourite channel on YouTube and having watched pretty much every video I've never seen him damage a car due to use of a KERR - only damage has been when a car is wedged somewhere ridiculous and rubs the scenery on the way out.
Some of the recoveries he's done have been astounding.
We can all find examples of idiots doing things wrong. Let's not tar everybody with the same brush.
Compared to the instantaneous jerk of a snatch strap, a KERR exerts a fraction of the peak force but does so over a much longer period of time. It is therefore much kinder to the vehicles involved and an excellent choice for lightweight vehicles like a Jimny.
An adaptor for fitting a recovery shackle in the place of the tow bar is a good idea and will be more than adequate for normal recovery situations. Actually, in the real world, a standard flange-type tow ball is perfectly adequate for recovering any car in a normal stuck situation. I've seen the videos of when towballs fail. 99% of the time it's not the fact they were towing from the towball that was the problem! No recovery point is indestructible. Idiots will always find a way. Also many countries (Aus and USA in particular) use a different style of bolt-on tow ball that is inherently much weaker than the type we typically have in the UK. Even so, watching Ronnie Dahls attempts to intentionally break them shows that it doesn't merely happen by accident!
Matt's off road recovery is a great channel. He's a clued up guy, practical with lots of common sense.
I have ordered a piece of square solid which should be here soon. For some reason the designer of my particular towbar decided that 28mm was a good size to make the mounting faces of the female coupling for the swan neck. Way to go that man. So a little more involved than I hoped, what is wrong with whole unit measurements to the nearest 10? Anyway what this means is that using the 30mm stock I have ordered I am going to be limited to a bow shackle as there's no really enough space to get a big enough hole to accommodate fitting a soft shackle which is unfortunate. So last question for now, I am planning on the hole for the shackle pin to be horizontal so that in the event of an angle pull it is the rope acting on the bow part of the shackle that moves rather than the pin moving in the bore and potentially unscrewing itself or indeed tightening itself so I can't get it off.
Temeraire (2018 quasar grey automatic)
One of the last 200ish of the gen3s, probably.
ADOS Attention Deficit Ooooh Shiny!
Roger Fairclough wrote: KERR stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery Rope and as such is made from 8 strand Multiplex nylon rope. It's style of weaving means that it does not kink. A 3 strand nylon rope has the same degree of stretch but will kink if not properly straightened before use. Kinks will reduce the strength.. The rope used to pull out tanks is 65mm in diameter. The army needed a method to get a 60 ton tank out of the muck ASAP and the thought of asking a tank crewman to exit the tank under fire to carefully lay out a 3 strand rope before attaching it was asking to much.
Nylon snatch straps look a lot like lifting straps but are woven to stretch. I have one in the Jimny simply because I had it in my Land-Cruiser. I would tow with it and I might consider a very mild tug but a full blooded gung ho lets show em how it's done is a big no no.
Roger
I'm a little lost on your point. We aren't talking about tanks. And frankly they have no real relevance to 4x4 recovery such as a Jimny.
You can get and do get idiots no matter what type of a rope they are using. A violent snatch recovery with a non KERR is a sure fire way of breaking stuff and maybe even causing whiplash. Non KERR ropes also have plenty of potential energy too, and should a recovery point fail, then a non KERR will fling it across a field, in much the same way a medieval trebuchet would.
Lambert, unless you are towing for a long period of time a can't see there being enough movement on the pin to loosen it enough to compromise the strength of the shackle. Some grease on the pin might be a sensible precaution.
This topic has inspired me to get a KERR. They aren't as expensive as I thought and should save a bit of wear and tear on the Jimny as almost every recovery I do seems to require snatching to at least a small degree. The relative lack of traction is one of the downsides of such a lightweight vehicle, so being able to safely use some momentum should makes things a lot easier.
I note your decision to buy a KERR. Before you do I suggest you go onto
www.goodwinch.com
. The guy who runs it, David Bowyer ,co-operated with Marlow ropes and the British Army to develop the KERR and the information in the web will be useful. The standard size for a KERR is 24 mm diameter but as you are using a Jimny then I would suggest 18mm but you may not get a made up rope in that dia. so either buy a length of 8 strand nylon rope -this is what KERR is made up from- and get the seller to splice the ends or email Goodwinch to see if they can make you one. Either way a sleeve protector is a good idea.
I'm no authority on this subject but i have read a tow bar is a NO NO as a recovery point, but as you are on private land you can do what you want. will you have to inform your insurance?
On private land anything you do is on your own head. Tow bars for recovery It's similar to the 85% vehicle mass as maximum towing weight proposed by the caravan club. It's "advice" proffered to the masses as truth that has no foundation in law.
Temeraire (2018 quasar grey automatic)
One of the last 200ish of the gen3s, probably.
ADOS Attention Deficit Ooooh Shiny!
Last edit: 31 Aug 2020 17:14 by Lambert. Reason: clarity
A serious question, based on a total lack of real knowledge on the subject...
I've read before about recovery with the ball of a tow bar being dangerous... I equally understand that people then replace the tow ball with some sort of tow hitch and use that for recovery... My question though is... Why not just securely and safely attach / loop the tow rope around some suitable part of the tow bar (other than the ball), where it can't slip off and recover GENTLY by that method?... It seems to me that its all about attaching the tow rope securely and not snatching someone too aggressively... surely if the tow bar itself is securely attached to the vehicle being used for recovery then it is the same load on the said vehicle, irrelevant of how the tow rope is attached to the tow bar?... or am I missing something more obvious?
As I said my question isn't based on any experience or knowledge of the subject, just a bit of logic, so please don't berate me for asking what may be a stupid question to those who know more about the subject then me!
