Breakaway Cable: Runs Close to the Ground

Problem: the breakaway cable when attached to the car seems to run quite close to the ground. My solution to lift it clear of the road.

This is how I attach the breakaway cable to the car. The cable does not go through the towbar, I use a shackle, then the cable goes through that.	This shows the problem, although it doesn't actually scrape the road surface.	On the front of the "A" frame is a horizontal bar, attached one cable tie to it and through that one, attached another one to support the cable.
The top cable tie fixed securely to the "A" frame, the bottom one left with a loop for the cable to run through.	Cable runs higher off the ground.	Before leaving on a trip.

After uncoupling the cable after a trip, the spring part of the clip just fell off, it was time to get the tool box out.

This is the part that fell off, a spring. The cable is not that old less than 12 months.

This is how it should be. Seems like it was rivetted and has failed.

The solution, to drill out the old rivets and just put a couple of new ones on. A simple 5 minute job.

On my towhitch, the breakaway cable cannot go through an anchor point, it is not large enough. I did this below;

Overview of the caravan hitched up to the car. The hitchlock is on because the outfit was left for a while, better safe than sorry.

The anchor point is too small for the end of the breakaway cable to go through. My solution is to fit a shackle through the hole, then pass the cable end through that and clip it back to itself.

A closer view shows the arrangement. I did this as I was not happy hooking it around the towball.

 Page Created 15th June 2008/Updated 23rd November 2008