Twisted Tire Chains

I have quite a bit of experience chaining up my equipment (pickup, Bobcat, farm tractor, Gator), and have gotten pretty good at it over the years.

I was putting chains on my farm tractor today, and when I was laying them out to make sure that the cross links were facing the right way, and everything was untangled, I noticed a section that seemed to be twisted -the side chain links were twisted around so they were sitting on top of the hook ends, instead of being pulled toward the center as they should have been. I scratched my head, and the best thing I could figure out was that at some point while stowing them, or taking them back out, I managed to pull one or other of the free ends through a cross section, creating a twist.

It took me a looooong time to get it untangled, figuring out which way I had to pull it back through to remove the twist. I finally figured out I had to start at the twisted section and work toward the free end, and I got it sorted out all right, but the whole time I was thinking about having this kind of scenario occur on a training run. Trainer sitting in the warm truck waiting to chew my ### for wasting time while I struggled out in a blizzard at the base of Vail pass, with a load to get through, and Colorado's chain law in effect. Ah, this trucking thing will be great, I'm already having nightmares!

I suppose I could have just thrown them on and ignored the twisted section, but I try to get things right, since my experience is that if I don't, there'll be payback at some point.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if there's any particular way I could have gone about sorting out that twisted section. Ordinarily, I can just slap those suckers on and go, and I was really stuck on this for a while today.

 

Prairie Boy, I am darn sure gonna do that. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a tire chain plier. I did think about opening up those links and straightening out the twist, but I figured that'd be a real newb solution!

Thanks man!

 

Can you elaborate on why truck chains can't be spread? I Googled tire chain pliers, and found some with pictures showing the links being spread and closed up again.

http://www.tirechain.com/tire-chain-pliers.htm

And yeah, I was gonna ask about the racks, I can see where that'd help. I made the mistake of jamming my farm tractor chains into the bags they came in, I think that's how they got twisted. I'll have to weld up a rack in my shop to store those suckers.

 

No argument from me on the storage Injun, I'd just as soon not have to wrestle with the problem in the first place!

I gotta tell ya though, getting that twist out took some trial and error.

 

Heh, well that's what I did, 'cause it was the only thing I could think of. I did think of taking it apart, but those farm tractor chains are big heavy suckers, and that would've been a project by itself.

I've seen those racks on trucks. So, when I get through school, and get a job and a truck, there's one more thing I need to check out before I hit the road. Make sure they aren't twisted, and keep 'em that way when they go on the rack.