How We Attach To Your Vehicle
Jena's Words: So many customers are worried about what we attach to, even the Mammoth Lakes Police Department wanted to know more. Below is a summary of the training we held at the Mammoth Lakes Police Department this year, showing that any vehicle can be safely towed or pulled without a tow point or tow hitch. Below I have broken it down, starting with definitions and photos of the equipment.
Masterpull Mini Mac Rigging Line
WHAT IS IT?
The Mini MacGyver Rigging Line, or ‘Mini Mac’, was designed as a versatile winch line anchor. In many recovery scenarios, a vehicle does not have frame mounted tow recovery points, such as a Honda CRV, or a minivan, so you have to get creative while still avoiding all damage to the sensitive parts. Sometimes you need to connect your winch line or rope to an unconventional point like the control arm, frame, or frame mounted bumper.
HOW DO WE USE IT?
The photo here shows a Mini Mac rigging line on the control arm of an IFS (independent front suspension) vehicle. In the photos at the top of this article, Alex is showing the Mammoth Lakes Police Department how to use this Mini Mac on their IFS Ford Expedition control arm. We use the control arm because it is already rated to carry a lot of load and pressure from your normal road driving. We avoid wrapping any wires, lines or hoses when we go over the control arm. You can see in the photo included here the Mini Mac is ready to be hooked up to a soft shackle now.
Masterpull Soft Shackle
WHAT IS IT?
Synthetic soft shackles are an excellent alternative to standard steel bow shackles. They are much lighter and in most cases safer to use than a conventional shackle. They even float on water!
We have used traditional metal shackles and D-rings before, they do work but they can fail (just like the soft shackles) and come flying back at the tow truck. We even had a soft shackle come flying back at the truck when one of our Mini Mac riggning lines broke during a pull, the soft shackle came flying back to the truck with so much force it dented the tailgate and continued to fly under the truck to the front. My point is that if a soft shackle dents a tailgate, imagine if it were a hard metal shackle...it would have done much more damage.
HOW DO WE USE IT?
The photo here shows a soft shackle attached to the same Mini Mac rigging line that is wrapped around the control arm of this IFS vehicle. We simply run the shackle through the eye loops of the rigging line, now it is ready to shackle to a synthetic recovery rope.
Masterpull Soft Super Yanker
WHAT IS IT?
The Super Yanker is a shock absorbing, double braided nylon rope that stretches up to 30% for highest performance vehicle extraction. During vehicle recovery the rope stretches and absorbs enormous energy from the pulling vehicle. This energy is then transferred to the stuck vehicle, resulting in an extremely effective and efficient vehicle recovery. This stretch eliminates the jerking action commonly felt with static tow straps and greatly reduces the amount of stress on the vehicle and its occupants.
HOW DO WE USE IT?
We connect our Super Yanker 7/8" 30 foot or 20 foot rope using several methods, depending on the situation. Alex determines if we need a straight pull or to pull at an angle. Most of the time we do a pull at an angle, which means we connect the rope to the control arm or axle housing on one side of the stuck vehicle.
Here is a photo of our rope being connected to the soft shackle and Mini Mac rigging line, this is our most common setup for simple pulls
The other end of this rope is ready to be connected to the tow truck at this point using another soft shackle.
Below is an example of how we connect our rope using the bridle method and two hooks on a Jeep that are connected to the frame, this is great for pulls that need to stay straight:
Here is a photo of our rope connected to a D-ring on the towing end of our Ford, this is the same method us use on the tow hooks mounted on the front of most Chevy and Ford trucks:
After we are done, we simply unhook everything. We inspect our equipment for any frays, damage or defects at this time too because any compromised equipment retires and is no longer used on jobs.
One time we needed to combine our 20' and our 30' rope for a longer pull and those two got stuck together because we took someone's advice to put a shackle in-between the "eyes" as a spacer of sorts. Here is a photo of what the result was: a tangled kinetic mess.
From this experience, we decided not to put a shackle in between the ropes but instead we just use a soft shackle to attach the ropes to each other sacrifice a little stretch so we can get our ropes apart at the end without damage. Above are most of the methods that work for us so far. We are always open to constructive criticism because we are always looking to improve our processes and practices. If you ever have ideas or see room for improvement please reach out to us via email: frosty4wheelers@gmail.com or social media @Frosty4wheeler
All of these items can be picked up from our online store: Frosty4wheeler.com/shop
If you read this far you deserve a discount code to use on anything from our online store: use FROSTY20 for a $20 discount at checkout.