Break Away Cable - best place to hook it up ??

[ChristineB]

Hi All, thanks so much for all your help with all my questions. Here's another one: 
First off, we have a 2013 Coachmen Freedom Express 292BHDS and we tow it with a 2009 Ford F150 FX4.
My question is about the break away cable - where does it hook up (and how) onto the tow vehicle?  Currently (and previously with our old Coleman pop up) we threaded the cable through the safety chain and the safety chain is hooked on the truck; but, when we bought the new trailer, they told us that this way is not the best and that we need a separate "S" hook on the truck which will receive the cable and NOT to thread the cable through the chain.
Is this correct?  Won't the cable come off the "S" hook or is there a special "S" hook available for this purpose?
Thanks !!!

 

[Jim Godward]

I use a carabiner to hook the cable to my MH.  I use either a loop on my hitch or a hole in the chassis frame.  I also use a smaller one for the hook up to the breakaway switch.

 

[teddyu]

The breakaway cable needs to be independent of the hitch, receiver, and tow bar.  To accomplish this, I ran a seperate cable from my frame near the gas tank in the MH to the hitch receiver tongue.  I strapped it there with a light weight nylon tie wrap.  The cable has a loop for attaching the breakaway cable form the TOAD.  I use a snap connection on the end that attachs to the MH.  If the tow bar, baseplate, ball mount, or hitch fail, the independent cable will actuate the breakaway switch.  JM2?...

 

[Cant Wait]

I lace the cable thru the safety chains to keep it from dragging and then hook the end of the cable over my hitch asm retaining pin. I loop it5 over the clip pin end of the rataining pin so it can't slip off.

 

[Water Dog]

Since the break-away is there to stop your trailer/toad in the event of a failure of a hitch part, you shouldn't attach it to any part of the hitch including the receiver or ball mount. It should be attached to a part of the tow vehicle that has no chance of coming apart - the frame. As was mentioned above, many make a loop over the frame with a separate piece of cable, then attach it to that using a carabiner.

 

[John From Detroit]

One word of caution.. When it says "Independent of the hitch receiver"  I had mine wrapped across the crossover rail (the rail the hitch receiver is welded to)  Well guess what, THAT RAIL FELL OFF< break away and all.

Thankfully the brake control lead did not fail and the brakes worked as designed.