D shackles, Shovel & Recovery Points.

What you will need for your recoveries.

Shovel:

A shovel is the best and cheapest tool you could buy for recoveries, every 4x4 should have one. Long handle shovel will save your back!

A shovel is used in combination with most sand recoveries by removing sand from in front of the wheels to lower the stress and loads on recovery gear.

Recovery Points:

Having a recovery point is a must; otherwise a recovery may not be safely possible without risking damage to the vehicle or even worse injuring/killing a person.

For those who don’t yet know “DO NOT USE THE TOW BALL FOR RECOVERIES!!!” people have died from this, a tow ball is designed for downward forces only!

Some 4x4’s come with factory recovery points but only a few are safe to use with snatch straps or winches.

Finding the right recovery point for the vehicle is the number one thing to do on the must get list!

It’s the front recovery point that needs to be for the right make and model as every car is built differently.

The rear recovery point is easy fixed, buy pulling out the tow ball and leaving it at home. Then go and buy a $30-$50 tow hitch recovery point, these usually come with a D shackle.

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D shackles:

Without these you are limited to connecting recovery gear. A D-shackle is required in order to connect a snatch strap to a recovery point and then a second one for the other end.

Depending on the type of recovery over 4 of them could be used at one time.

Only use the minimal amount of shackles required in order to reduce the complexness of the recovery and limit the potential flying metal objects in the event something should break.

When using D-shackles tighten them all the way by hand and then loosen them by ½ a rotation, this will prevent the it from seizing shut.

They come in different sizes, if buying any I would recommend just buying the bigger ones to avoid any temptation to use a smaller/weaker ones when limited in recovery shackles.