Pitbull TRS twisting swingarms ?

I can't say what will happen in an extreme driving situations because of the sheer number of variables in play. While no one has ever reported any frame or swingarm damage to us, we do get stories like this: www.pit-bull.com/trailer-restraints-saves-bikes. That's not to say that you'll never experience a crash that somehow tweaks something...anything is possible. You're probably better off with it than without it though. Feel free to reach out if you ever have any questions or concerns.

 

My experience begs to differ. Accelerating made it 10x worse. Then I pushed in the clutch aimed for the horizon and rode it out. Flat spotted one of the trailer tires to the cords. (rented equipment trailer with surge brakes)

 

If it's enough lateral force to bend the swingarm... I wonder what the end result would have been if it was just strapped down instead of super glued with a TRS?

 

To the moon!

 

thanks for chiming in.

neither trailers crashed. the ducati 848 was in a 6x12 trailer single axle and the 2017+ R6 was in a toy hauler. both bikes measured straight prior and werent crashed.

i'm wondering if you have heard of this before, and if there is anything we can do to avoid or decrease the possibility of it happening. like torque the bolts to xxx ft/lbs, dont mount TRS plates in the back of a trailer, etc.

 

Load the trailer correctly.

 

The one time it happened to me- yes flooring it corrected it. '96 GMC conversion van pulling a 6.5x12 open trailer with a cord+ of firewood, started a violent weave at around 60-65 mph. Stepped on the gas and it calmed down at around 75, then I slowly backed off the gas to slow down.

 

No one has ever reported anything like this before. The bolt torque is 10 ft lbs. There's no reason to not mount in the back of the trailer(obviously center the load so if it's just bikes in the trailer, the very back might not be ideal). Racers and teams have been doing that for a long time. I suspect this was an isolated incident and nothing to be concerned about.

Charlie V had them in the back of the trailer once and got rear ended by a semi truck...his land speed S1000RR was in the back, but we had no issues with that bike. We also had a blowout on the way to Bonneville once and everything was fine.

Rickey Gadson's trailer got split in half when he got t-boned in an intersection years back. He did report that he found his ZX14 still secured via TRS to the half of the trailer that was over in the ditch. His axle had to be replaced but he reported no other damage.

 

Real world testing for a superior product.

 

Might as well add look far enough up the road to make sure you don't need to do any sudden evasive maneuvers. You can load the trailer properly, have a sufficient tow vehicle, and be an excellent and safe driver but sometimes poop happens and you have to do an emergency evasive maneuver to avoid an accident. In that case your trailer and its contents are going to get tossed around a bit.

 

I could see the swingarm being tweaked as a possibility. With the bike secured its basically a lever and the axle becomes the fulcrum point.

While the swingarms are beefily engineered, I'd assume their design is for much more vertical load than lateral. So if enough quick lateral loading happened in opposite directions a tweak to swingarm is absolutely possible.

Don't think it would be common and would likely only happen in a handful of extenuating circumstances, but not impossible.

Also don't think it's any flaw of the PBR system, just physics. When using the PBR, adding some D-rings on the floor and 2 cam buckle straps (I never use ratchets for securing a bike) would be plenty to restrict side to side movement of the front end to prevent the issue. And they only take like 15 seconds to attach securely.

 

i suspect that others werent installing the kits properly, is what i was thinking. i thought the torque spec was 7 ft/lbs, but i do remember doing whatever the instructions said

 

Absolutley. But I'dont think the level of stress from a turning bike on the track would = the those of a trailer quickly changing direction laterally and acting on the fixed fulcrum.

 

I somewhat agree with your point, but the ONE tiedown that I have had fail in 40 years was an Ancra and it was when trailering home my just-purchased SV650 racebike. I was pissed. (This was back when SV650s weren't old enough to be clapped-out so there was actually something to be pissed about )

 

I log back on for one day and this is the kinda sh!t to read ... lol.