I always loop the breakaway cable around the towbar bracket and not the towball itself. I assume this is correct as I don't have any other way of attaching it.
My cable is too short to loop behind the tow ball bracket so I have to loop it over the tow ball. I'm not happy doing this as I know that if the tow ball snaps off the brake away cable won't be applied. When I had my horse trailer the cable was long enough to loop behind the bracket. Maybe I'll look into getting a longer cable fitted.
I might be wrong on this but I have always thought that some cables had clips that were strong enough to clip onto a bracket directly whilst others had to be clipped back onto the cable.
My towbar has machined holes to clip the breakaway cable to, so thats what I do, clip to the bar. I might be wrong as I've only be towing caravans three years but seeing cables looped around the tow ball looks unsafe and it's not exactly a mechanical device just looped round.
Take a look at an artic fifth wheel coupling, the dog clip is on a short chain so that the clip can only be locked at one point. You will never see it looped round the locking bar.
Quote: Originally posted by brianconwy on 02/7/2016
I might be wrong on this but I have always thought that some cables had clips that were strong enough to clip onto a bracket directly whilst others had to be clipped back onto the cable.
Yes, that's quite right but on older caravans the breakaway cable CLIP wasn't robust enough to withstand the weight of a detached caravan so the recommendation was to wrap the cable around the towball and attach the clip back on to the cable. If the caravan did happen to detach then the cable would act as a noose around the neck of the towball. However, the clips are now designed with a huge breaking strain which are also used by mountain climbers so the application of attaching the clip directly to the car now makes sense. When I had my caravan serviced back in April I asked for the breakaway cable to be replaced and you could visually see the difference between the original and the later version which the service engineer said that I could attach this directly to the 12 mm. hole in the fixed flange mounting plate.
The problem is that as technology advances, any important related information seems to be absent from articles in caravan magazines so the relevant information only gets distributed by forums (as stated in this thread) or by word of mouth.
However, the way I attach the breakaway cable now is to screw a 10 mm. forged stainless steel marine bow shackle through the 12 mm. mounting hole then pass the breakaway cable directly through the shackle and attach back on to the cable which is the same principal as before using the towball but using the back plate of the towball flange instead.
As I understand it the breakaway cables fitted to new vans are still the cheaper version designed for "loop over" attachment, they are on the last couple of Baileys I have bought including my most recent van bought earlier this year. I always change over to the specific ALKO breakaway cable with the carabiner clip designed for direct attachment. These can be bought direct from ALKO's online shop for £8.50. Have a look at their website and compare the difference to see which cable you have.
Tango has the simple answer which is what I have always done, All towbars flange or swan neck will have some sort of hole or loop. Put a shackle or large carabiner through hole & loop cable through that.
It's law in Holland, you get nicked for having cable around towball.
i've just watched the Bailey instruction video published on youtube May this year ..they say put the breakaway cable around the towball !!! i don't think so !!
Also Failure to have a properly attached & functioning breakaway cable on your caravan or trailer could invite a £60.00 fixed penalty notice & 4 points from those nice people at VOSA or the Police.
Quote: Originally posted by navver on 03/7/2016
So is it OK to loop it round the flange of the tow bar. It's a fixed type with 2 bolts holding the tow ball on.
I Do that too....
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Topic: Breakaway Cable
