Is this pin supposed to be all the way through?

Is this pin supposed to be all the way through?

no, that pic is correct

But wouldn't it make more secure if it was all the way through?

Yes, but
>American engineering
doesn't have to make sense, just has to look sturdy.

my tow hitch looks just like that

i dont get it either so i lockwired it pulling towards the pin

I just find it interesting that this dinky little pin is what ultimately secures a 5000 pound load

Not really. There is enough force from the spring part of it to hold it in the hole, and it isn't in danger of getting pulled out through normal use.

Hello you wonderful shitpostan faggot, how is your day going?

But it's not. It's there to hold the larger pin in place, which is what actually keeps the hitch on the receiver.

No. Its a lock pin, and designed to be removed easily but keep the hitch pin from falling out.

There shouldn't be a lateral load on the pin itself.

Not at all actually. A 5/8" pin has a cross section of 200 square millimeters, and alloys have a tensile strength (including resisting shearing) of anywhere between 400 and 1000 N/sqmm, so they can bear a force of 80 to 200 kN. I don't know what kinda forces the pin experiences from the hitch wiggling around as the tow vehicle pulls the trailer, but if the tow vehicle pulls as hard as the earth's gravitation it's equivalent to 18k-45k lbs at the hitch.

Then it would be a necessary bitch to get off.

What other part of the hitch is supposed to absorb forces in that direction? The pin is the only thing keeping the hitch from sliding out of the receiver.

>ease of use trumps capability and security
Murrika in a nutshell.

I should have said "shouldn't be much of a lateral load"

Well, otherwise you have the trailer's brakes secured with a cable clipped to the tow vehicle, in case of tow hitch failure. Hitch breaks, cable gets pulled, brakes lock on, trailer doesn't go careening everywhere.

It... It IS a braked trailer, right?

Is there a limit in the US from which upwards all trailers need to have brakes? In Germany it's 750 kg or around 1650 lbs.

3-4k lbs.

That's a pretty high fucking weight for an unbraked trailer.

The pin isn't in danger of falling out, thanks to the cotter pin. It only has to be in place to take the longitudinal load, and it'll take tens of thousands of pounds before that pin shears

Half the weight is the trailer lmao

Roughly third of the weight depending on attachments. 1500 kg car trailer is 350-400 kg. 1500 kg hydraulically lowering utility trailer with sides and cage is 550-600 kg.

no

...

That's why we use "big" trucks to tow things and not fwd diesels. We have mountain passes to g up and down. Our trailers are heavy too unlike the cuckcarts like >17259319.

i rented a baby excavator a couple weeks ago, the machine and trailer were 12k lbs, no trailer brakes.

Nigger have you seriously never seen one of these before? They're fine.

>he says, as he spins out at 5mph

Cummy is an idiot but he's not wrong here. That's how those clips are designed. The main clamping force is in the middle.

What the fuck even happened here? Rollover?