Breakaway cable
In preparation for our trip to Europe later this year I'm planning to fit a breakaway cable attachment bracket and a carabiner breakaway cable. Obviously, I need a carabiner on the end that attaches to the car but what about the other end that attaches to the caravan brakes? Does it need to be the same as the one already fitted? Any other factors I should take into account?
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The end attached to the brake needs no attention assuming it is as it came out of the factory.
The only other consideration is the carabiner, there are many Alu ones that are just not up to the job. I have a screw close SSteel one rated to about 600kg, bit of overkill but wont fail.
I cant remember the application force for the brake but someone on the forum will have the min force required. If you cant find the specified force I think a 6mm stainless one is more than strong enough. Only use one where the supplier gives a SWL for the item.
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Does the end that attaches to the caravan brakes need to be the same fitting the one currently fitted? There are several options. One is a split ring type, another has a loop you close with pliers and a third has a pin held in place with a split pin. I've also seen cables with a carabiner on both ends.
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Alko only sell two types. One for looped attachment with a clip at the car end. One for direct attachment (In This Country at least) with a carabiner at the car end. The caravan end on both are the loop you close with pliers. Although when I changed mine it took some fairly large pliers and a fair bit of force to close. Both of course can be looped through another suitable carabiner, to satisfy some over there countries. However only the carabiner type should be connected directly.
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This is the one as fitted by the Dutch Vehicle Inspector last year, after bing pulled over near Rotterdam Europort (see original thread)....at a cost of 4€ (cash in hand
)....before I was allowed to continue and before the the attending police officer issued me with a 107€ fine...(now buried deep in the Dutch Judiciary system)...play safe and fit one...definitely for Holland and Germany..1 -
I take it your cable was a loop round type which after your Dutch incident you looped through the new carabiner?
What would have happened if your vehicle had not had a suitable mounting point for the 4E (how do you do a euro symbol??) carabiner?
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If you have an Alko chassis I would suggest the only proper solution is to use the carabiner type ALKO cable with the loop that you close around the eye in the brake lever. It was mentioned above but these are VERY difficult to close around the brake lever, I found that a very big pair of mole grips gave a good result.
The other problem I have found with the carabiner type cable is that it is made the same length as the loop around type and as it doesn't have to "loop around" it is too long.
Where you attach the carabiner to the car is a different issue, fitting a "cable attachment bracket" if there was not one on your vehicle already may not be a good idea.
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I does not need to be the same as the one fitted. All the ones shown are suitable but I think the 3rd one shown is for a specific trailer fitment.
By far the easiest to fit is the double carabiner.
The hardest is the split ring, pig to spread and feed onto the brake assembly.
The squash one is approved but not my choice.
When the cable is deployed in the event of hitch failure, the cable pulls the brake on and then snaps, its designed to fail.
If I change a breakaway I use the split ring type but fit a D shackle onto the brake first, this orientates the assembly in the correct plane and means you can fit the ring to the shackle first and do not have to try to open it up to fit it.
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(how do you do a euro symbol??)
For iMac / Macbook Pro it is alt+2
What would have happened if your vehicle had not had a suitable mounting point for the 4E (how do you do a euro symbol??) carabiner?
Good point..The photo above shows the carabiner fitted to a fixing point...but this is part of the detachable tow bar fitting...before that was fitted there was no fixing point. Interestingly I have the new 18 plate of that vehicle with a different tow bar (one that can be either made detachable or fixed) and comes with a fixing point.....in both installations the fixing point is slightly off plane to the breakaway cable alignment....which of course when looped around the actual towball..the cable is in perfect alignment...
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in both installations the fixing point is slightly off plane to the breakaway cable alignment....which of course when looped around the actual towball..the cable is in perfect alignment...
what a very good point, surely one of the aspects of the breakaway cable is to keep the caravan as stable as possible in the event of a breakaway, and being in perfect alignment would surely help to keep the caravan straight rather then veering off left or right.
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I have seen a breakaway cable in operation when someone (not me yet) on site forgot to detach it after unhitching their car. The jolt on the caravan and car, before it broke, made me wonder whether it would actually break if the caravan became detached while driving along a level road and I could imagine the caravan grinding along the road still attached by the cable, hopefully the brakes will come on.
Bringing a detached caravan to a halt in a straight line is unlikely but having the brakes applied is about the best you can hope for in that situation. Also, on a more selfish note, it does reduce the risk of a 2 tonne runaway ploughing into the rear of your car.
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I found that my setup needed a significantly shorter breakaway cable for carabiner attachment than any 'stock' items i could find, all of which i was concenrned were too long and likely to foul the road or snag.
I contacted an EBay seller called robrunner, who sells a variety of breakaway cables and he was happy to make me two of a specified length, which I am very happy with. He can make them in many configurations, clip, carabiner ends, red/yellow sleeve etc and I found him very helpful and the cables cost only a couple of pounds each.
I re-used the original split ring to attach it to the caravan brake lever end as it was in perfect condition, it took less than 5 minutes.
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I have historically shown considerable patience with Alko both through Email and on the phone, to no avail. They don’t show any interest in solving the excess length of their very common carabiner cable problem. I completely agree with your decision to have a custom sized alternative. Thanks for posting the link and shame on Alko for refusing to implement an easy solution.
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