Wheel Straps Disambiguation Page

Wedge Trailers/ 3 Car

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Wedge trailers are in most cases single level trailers that haul three or four vehicles at a time. They are usually powered by heavy duty one ton pickup, but many companies will pull them with a traditional Class 8 tractor.

The majority of wedge trailers use a side mount wheel strap system in which the strap creates a lasso loop around the top of the tire and are tensioned by a ratchet handle on the side of the trailer or to the trailer's rub rail. I have heard some drivers refer to these wheel straps as “Y Straps” or “V Straps” because of their appearance.

Gator Straps

But the most over-engineered lasso-style wheel strap known in the history of car hauling has to be the Gator strap. Check it out: a 2 inch wide strap woven with the thickest, strongest fabric. Strap material that the manufacturer has engineered to 19,600 lb breaking strength. (Please don't do anything too crazy with it, as our strongest hardware we can put with it is only 10-11,000 lbs., so it does NOT have a higher working load limit. HOWEVER, it is so thick and so strong, our customers who haul heavy trucks, vans, etc. have started asking for it by name.

You can purchase axle straps, cargo straps and lasso straps made out of GATOR material, plus ratchet handles that use GATOR to attach the hook to the bolt on the end of the ratchet handle.

Will the hooks on the wheel strap assembly fit your trailer?

Our EZ fit wire hooks and our swivel J hooks on our wheel straps will fit the following trailer models, provided they have a 1 inch hole pattern or bigger. Careful though, if you have a really, really old trailer, you'd better measure the narrowest diameter of the hole. You want a minimum ¾ inch hole to use the swivel J hooks and a minimum 1 inch hole in your deck

• Cottrell
• Boydstun
• Delavan

The EZ fit wire hook will also fit most JM Trailers (small west coast trailer manufacturer that went out of business during The Great Recession.) Be careful though-- if your trailer is older, and has been re-furbed... it may have a deck plate that we are not familiar with. When in doubt, take out your tape measure and tell us what you're dealing with. If you email a pic showing measurement, we can solve a problem before it becomes a problem that requires boxes of wheel straps to get shipped back and forth across the country.

If you have a Miller, Sun Valley, Orange Blossom or Sun Country double-check your hole size. You may be able to use our special strap that has the longer hook style.

This kind of hole in your deck plate means MEASURE FIRST!

Length of Strap

Typically, these feature a 9 or 10 foot strap with three rubber tread grabs. Most popular size wheel strap is 9 footers, but if you're doing really big SUVs like Land Rovers, etc., you might want to go to a 10 footer. If you're doing mostly passenger vehicles, then the 10 footer is going to give you that much more extra strap to wrap around the ratchet handle with each wheel you have to tie-down.

(WARNING: DO NOT buy 8 foot ratchet wheel straps unless you know that you're ONLY going to be transporting the vehicles with the tires this smaller, older version of wheel strap fits.)

Hook Style

A hook is sewn to the end of the strap. Then you've got your three rubber tread grabs separating by blocking spacers of smaller strap to keep them from sliding around too much. Behind these, you have the idler hooks that floats freely. This goes on the other side of the tire. Both hooks go down into the deck plate of your trailer.

So your main decision to make here is: Swivel J Hook or Double J Wire Hook?

Tread Grabs & Stopper Block Patterns

We generally recommend you buy “Over the Tire” wheel straps with three rubber tread grabs. That's how we spec most of ours. Beware of companies that only want to sell you a couple per wheel. Also, make sure the tread grabs you're getting are nice big rubber ones-- not chintzy plastic.

We've rejected a few vendors, because they tried to convince us our customers wouldn't mind their crappy tread grabs. We beg to differ. The tread grab keeps that strap positioned properly on the tire and helps to equalize the tension on both sides of the tire. That is very, very important in a wheel strap... not really a place you want to cut corners.

AA Wheel Strap Ratchet Handles

Our AA line of wheel straps from PCC has the best ratchet handles on the market. No, I'm not bragging. I've spent ungodly amounts of time comparing ratchet handles. They are NOT identical. You'd be surprised. Well, actually-- you probably wouldn't be surprised if you bought ours, because they work just the way you want them to. The ratchet handles on the AA line are a little heavier duty, professional grade.

If you treat them nice.. clean them up every once and a while and lube them up with some WD40 or teflon spray, they'll last you ga good long time. We use the short wide ratchet handle that is about 7 inches long. Not that big 10 incher. Less scratched paint jobs, we hope.

Chain Grab Straps

If you're running a chain truck, then you'll want to buy the package deals that give you a ratchet handle with your wheel strap, unless you want to go with a chain tightened version of the strap that features either a heavy duty D ring.

Some guys like to use these on their top deck, as they can stand on the lower deck and use their winch bar to tension the straps. Plus, it makes one less thing to lug up onto the top deck. Might be safer for you that way. Probably not. Car hauling isn't exactly a safe occupation.