Truck Harness Pull ?

[D.J. Satterfield]

A couple of questions about the truck harness pull for anyone that has experience with it.

What is best to use to hook from the harness to the vehicle; chain, sling, etc.?

How do you attach the pulling piece(chain, sling, etc.) to the vehicle? I have seen pics of some that use some sort of cradle or something already attached to the vehicle to keep everything centered.

How long should the piece from the harness to the vehicle be?

Anything you can think of that would be helpful would be greatly appreciated. I will be having a harness truck pull at my contest this summer and want it to work correctly.

Jesse, if you read this, your input would be great as I am sure you have done this event numerous times.

Thanks for the help.

[Kristyn Vytlacil]

I use nylon towing ropes to pull my truck. They have plastic hooks on either end, so you can hook one end to the vehicle and the other to the harness. You can find some at a hardware store, that's where I got mine. And the ones I have are actually adjustable so I can change the length if I want. My truck has tow hooks in the front, so that's what I attach the ropes to and I would guess that most pick-ups these days have tow hooks. Hope that helps!

[D.J. Satterfield]

Kristyn, thanks, I don't know if the plastic will work as I plan on pulling 10,000+lb. vehicle. I will check into it.
I am looking more for the setup that is used with the semi's being pulled by harness and lead rope.

[CharlesDMickey]

Big trucks; semi, dump trucks, fire trucks, should have some hooks or rings already on it for pulling the truck if it gets stuck.

I've seen two ropes used, one from each hook/ring on the truck going to a single carabineer on the harness. This works fine but if one line is slightly longer the athlete will be slightly to one side, but still no big deal. If there is a single hook in the middle of the truck just use one line. Considering most tow ropes/straps can handle 1000's of lbs its not going to break. Or if there is a hook/ring on both sides and you want to use one line run a long line through both then hook both ends to the harness (triangle shape)

For length just make sure it’s long enough that you don’t have a steep angle going from the athlete to the truck. But no so long that you might have a lot of stretch (if your line material stretches)

[D.J. Satterfield]

Good info, thanks Mick.
How is the calf doing?

[Joshua Davis]

I have used nylon straps on a 9 ton truck before - with carabiners in place of the S-hooks. Those thick nylon straps are strong enough to pull cars out of the mud with alot more force and velocity, I don't see why they can't pull a 10,000lb truck at 3 feet per second.

[D.J. Satterfield]

Thanks Joshua, yeah, I wasn't as concerned with the nylon strap as I was the plastic hooks on the end. Also, what weight vehicle do most people use to do a harness pull with a lead rope?

[Jared Enderton]

Those all sound like good ideas... I'd say 2 ropes if possible... but what do I know haha... but I love my Ironmind harness, so as far as harness's....

[D.J. Satterfield]

Yeah, I will give some of the ideas a try. As far as a harness goes, I will be using APT's.