THIS!!! I found a hitch that's rated for 16K, and I"m planning to get it since I don't know what the weight rating is on the hitch that's on my truck at the moment. I don't plan to connect a 16K trailer to it, but overkill is our friendI don't even get why lower class receivers are made.
Overkill. Go big or go home.
Crossing the chains like that is one of the first things I learned when I learned how to connect a trailer at the ripe age of 13, and exactly for that reason.Do you guys put your chains in a "X", putting the pass side trailer chain on the driver's side of the truck hitch and the other one opposite? I don't know where people learn about such things, but I happen to find out about this idea word-of-mouth and wish I had been doing it since I started hauling. The "X" will cradle the trailer tongue if something bad happens and the trailer tongue drops.
Here's a question, speaking of chains...is there a better place to connect them than to the hitch? I have a hitch insert that sticks out far enough that, when I'm using it, "standard" trailer chains don't reach all the way to the hitch. I temporarily have a piece of chain wrapped around the hitch that reaches far enough to get to the trailer chains, but I'd like to do something better. One thought was to find the highest-strength chain that I can and find a way to anchor it directly to the frame, but again, I'm in the early stages of considering it at this point...but, any thoughts?