(1868) Review: PACLOCK Hitch Locks (Approved!) 

Thank you so much! And certainly appreciate the kind words about our sales team, I'll be sure to bring that up on Monday.

Do they ship to Canada?

The hitch pins look very well machined. Would love to see a video on your machining processes.

Yea, the next lock I buy is going to be a paclock. I actively despise most marketing. This is how you get your brand out there the right way.

@@two_tier_gary_rumain One day we'll do a piece on our manufacturing ~ but right now, we're pretty tight lipped about it. We've developed some pretty trick/unique tooling and setup processes that allow us to run smaller volumes of parts and quickly switch to an entirely different part on that same machine. So one day...

@@stevenrs11 Much appreciated!

@@paclockpres.9805 Sounds very interesting.

Ah ha ha

Hahaha, I see what you did there 😂👍🏻

For The Birds?

bradw 053 Ha ha--wait...I didn't!

It's LPL with a voice changer when there is no gutting disaster 😉

I hear a man once sneezed while walking by a display of MasterLocks and they all fell open.

Just burst out laughing reading this, well done sir!

Yes, sir! Thank you!

No way. Better to let you THINK I'm stupid than to post the video and CONFIRM it. 😟

@@bosnianbill 👌

@@bosnianbill Also: GREAT patreon exclussive opportunity. Let them PAY to see you fail

@@bosnianbill smart.

Groan!

Bill's disasters are always the best!

Thank you! Yup, that drill operation to support the ball bearings is a tricky one. Too deep and the ball bearing falls through, not deep enough and the actuator binds. We're pretty darn good at that op, but every now and again we find a few mostly because of a loading issue of that part(s) in the machine. Glad to hear our team took care of you and got you some fresh locks!!

Thank you!

Are you a spy?!?! Maybe my marketing team has been pushing out info on the UCS-79A!!! Ha! The 79A is pretty darn cool, we shot a video for it last week and looking forward to it hitting the streets as well!

@@paclockpres.9805 I asked about needing one for my Bulldog, was told one was coming. I pre-ordered. My comment on it, would be the pins' 'head' should be more mushroom, since it is exposed for tool access. A clamshell style lock would be more secure (when trailer is attached and coupled).

@@demmarcsxr Thank you for not just the order, but for throwing out some thoughts on the design. I'll admit, I'm not quite following on the mushroom look for the head of the pin??? We want to be sure we leave enough surface area on the pin head for you to grab and yank hard if, for some reason, the pin gets wedged into the hitch. And I think that will allow for some tool access. But we are more than open to ideas on how to make things better... I'll even make a one-off for you personally just for you to test out and give us your thoughts. We know we're not always the smartest people in the room, and certainly not the only ones who can come up with good ideas!!! Maybe I can have my crew reach out to you on Monday to follow up? BTW ~ the bodies are all produced for the TL-79A and they are off at our anodizers. We've been waiting for a new chuck holder on our lathe to produce the pins, and that part came in Friday. So we'll be producing the pins this week... good timing for new ideas!

@@paclockpres.9805 If you look up Bulldog hitches 028630, you'll see a captured safety pin behind the collar. This is where I intend to use the 79A. The lock head will be under it, head of the pin on top. If there is slop, the head can be grabbed with pliers and under cut, or, it can be 'pipe bent' off similar to other drawbar locks weaknesses. A mushroomed head (similar to a carriage bolt) would minimize attack possibility. A clamshell lock around it (tight to the main collar) with a protected shackle trailer coupler lock would be better, but the only one on the market is way too sloppily built.

@@demmarcsxr We'll dig into this ~

Paclockception

Much appreciated!

nice to see the green approved stamp once in a while

Dude, next time pick up a phone....😂

@@bosnianbill 🤣Thanks for all of your great content, Bill!

Thank you!

Give us a shot, let us know how we do! Was at Ft. Lewis back in the late '90s... road salt for sure!

Thank you!

At that point it's like using an angle grinder on the head of the pin

The thread is more to screw into the Yakima rack itself. They have a bolt (kind of) inside their hitch that, as you put the pin through, you need to actually screw it into place. So once you bottom out (fully tightened), you've effectively cinched the hitch up against the rack so no wiggling. It's a good idea. Once that's done, you put the lock on the other side. So the lock is pretty independent from the threading feature. You can actually turn the pins all you want, the lock itself will just rotate around and around with it.

@@paclockpres.9805 I think the point is that the threads give you something to work with. If you try to undo the bolt, eventually to unwind it you'll be putting force on the lock, and in a more magnified way than is possible than with just the smooth sloped surface on the other pins. With enough torque, either the lock will pop off the end, the item in the middle being locked will be crushed, or the pin will snap. First two are most likely.

@@someonesomewhere1240 I'm with you now! I don't think we really did much research or engineering into how long to make the threads to even see if what you're saying would be possible. We literally just copied a pin from a Yakima rack. But maybe those guys never thought of that sort of thing. I think the simple fix is to decrease the length of the threads to the point where it won't put pressure on the lock (assuming it does today, haven't checked that!). It's something we'll check out. That would be one hell of a test to do though, if it was possible! The stainless pin won't shear or break (my guess), and the stainless lock body is pretty darn strong too. It has a stainless steel locking ball... but it pushes up against a brass actuator (solid). Maybe that would be the weak point. But I think it would take a lot like you mentioned!

@@paclockpres.9805 My prediction is that you would torque the head off of the pin before the lock would break. That seems to be the weak point on a lot of bolts of this sort.

How do you deal with the rotation pin?

@@cheyannei5983 You have to rotate the core in the *opposite* direction that you would to unlock the lock. That isn't guaranteed to keep things from locking up, but if you slide out the core in the same direction that it turned, you know for a fact that the retaining groove is underneath the pins. Note that if the retaining screw isn't in line with the pins, then it gets more complicated. In that case, if you have a key, the easiest thing I can think of is to hold a sharpie on the face of the core in line with the retaining pin and then turn the core back and forth to its full limits of rotation. The sharpie will draw out a line on the face of the curve that shows where the retaining groove is.

@@cheyannei5983 I loosen the sets crew at the top and rotate a small portion to the opposite side. Usually it's cheaper to just replace the lock but its fun to rekey them so lots of locks have the same key

Yeah, me too.... except something much nastier ran through my mind....😋

@@bosnianbill You weren't able to recover? I would have tried a magnet (assuming the pins were iron/steel rather than brass).

Thank you!

Actually we added the cotter pin because we watched and heard the concerns/complaints about other products in this category. Well, we've heard a lot about other locks literally falling off because they're such garbage. And while we can't ever think of a scenario where that could happen to our lock, we'd prefer to simply give the customer and ourselves the peace of mind knowing that the cotter pin is there just in case. We may actually make versions of the pin that don't have the cotter pin. By adding in the cotter pin feature, it lengthened the pin itself by a good amount. And we fear that the extra length on the pin may make it difficult, or just not possible, to get the pin to go through the hitch. Just the angles and space may prevent it on some people's hitch setups. In those cases, we'd offer the shorter version... haven't officially said "yes" to this yet, but waiting to get some real world feedback on the product once it's been in the wild for a little bit!

Dump Amazon has had a brain fart, and we're pushing everyday for them to fix their error. But it.... just.... takes.... time.... ug.

@@paclockpres.9805 Dumb question but since you're here, when I'm comparing the various locks applicable to a travel trailer like the ball latch, the receiver pin, and the cabinet locks for hatches, I see both a traditional product and a UCS product. Are the UCS replacement cores themselves rekeyable, and what's the difference in sizes between the keys of the two systems?

@@TWX1138 The keys are slightly different - the "traditional product" having a slightly larger key. But the real difference between UCS and what we call our "SR Series" (TL, 90A, 100, etc.) lies in the design of the lock and the cylinder. The "SR Series" was originally built to be a direct replacement for American Lock padlocks, but when we had the opportunity to launch our products into Home Depot, we built the UCS version, which is really going to revolutionize how traditional padlocks are bought and used. Not only are our cylinders eons above comparable padlocks like ML/AL, but every UCS lock is designed and machined with extreme tolerances to all have interchangeable cylinders that are easy enough to where the average user could re-pin their own lock. That means every single UCS PACLOCK can use the same key and you can re-pin whenever you need to - let's say an employee walked off with a key. That's the basic difference between UCS and SR, but there's also a myriad of other things like all stainless steel pins and all brass, stainless, and aluminum components in UCS PACLOCKs that really make it a premium product.

Right with you ~ someone had the same insight earlier. Don't know is the answer, but we see what you guys are saying. We literally just copied the setup Yakima had on their pin, so I guess you could possibly do that to their pins right now. Not sure. We're going to look at this design in more detail to see how long those threads really need to be and also how far away the locks needs to be so that the whole pin would free spin before the padlock would get squished up against the hitch side.

@@paclockpres.9805 Awesome! love to see a company that cares, and respond to customers feedback!

Not really. But the intent with our "UCS" system is to make it so that we bring easy-rekeying into the retail world directly. If we incorporated a control bar, then there'd need to be a control key. And if there were a control key, then we just couldn't see a smart way to prevent people from running around and simply pulling out the cores and opening the locks. We'd need to offer lots of different control keys, and that would get really confusing fast. Does this make sense?

@@paclockpres.9805 zactley,, sfic it's debatable whether it decreases or improves security. certainly easier to rekey then having to pull a screw. 10 seconds vs.10 minuets. don't get me wrong it is a nice design. The question is could you use a cylinder that had a control bar, would it fit, most sfic cores have the mounting screw available.

@@chasingcapsaicin Our cylinders just don't have the room... they're essentially the same size as a Master/American which is about 20% smaller than a typical SFIC...

@@chasingcapsaicin Totally with you on having to pull a core from a door knob and it taking way longer than if it has an SFIC. But on a padlock, it's probably more like 30 seconds versus 10 seconds (pop the padlock, remove the screw). When the day comes to where we are manufacturing door hardware, we might have to figure something out to make that easy as well! Not sure which mounting screw you're thinking of on an SFIC core... the two holes in the rear allow for the rotational forks to engage with the core. You have me curious!

We make quite a lot of padlocks to fit the FSIC format of cylinders... at this point, though, we haven't looked at making this new lock (UCS-80) to work with that format. Is it something you'd just need one or two for yourself???

For the kingpin, we likely need to produce something totally different. This is more for the standard trailer hitch ~ and we will get to producing a product to lock up the kingpin...