Doing away with some hooks

I have and even used the chain pockets. I even have two 1/2" chains with hooks removed because a grader I hauled recently the anchor points were too small to pass the hook through and too thick for the slip hook.

 

Cheater chains. Take your 20 ft chain, cut it into four 5 ft section. Put a grab hook on one end and a slip hook on the other. if your rub rail isn't bashed in, you hook the binders directly to the pocket.

 

Most of my 1/2" chains have hooks on one end & I carry enough hooks that I can put on both ends if needed, but I hate jacking with cotter pins so I carry these retainer pins for quick attachment when needed. Don't leave the hooks on when stowing them though as the retainer pins will get bent & be unusable fairly quickly if you do.

 

All the time.

A lot of times the binders hangover the rubrail to far for my taste.

 

As far as 3/8ths chain goes I have bunch of 4 footers with only 1 hook to go through tight spots on some smaller equipment and then 8 ,12 ,20 foot lengths. I paint the chain or hooks different colors so I know exactly what length I'm picking up. 1/2 inch i carry 5 footers with one hook only on one end and 16 foot with both hooks. Reading through a lot of posts from the guys that do this everyday I think slip hooks would be a good thing to add to one end of my binders and 1/2 inch chains.

 

I have a set of 3/8 and 1/2 just like @TripleSix described, grab hook on one end slip hook on the other. On machinery I use them more than anything. Even on other thing I use them a lot. For example I had a trench box on the other day with 6' spreaders in and my chains would reach clear to the D rings on both sides so I use the short ones to make up the difference. I've always carried short chains but I just made these a couple years ago with the slip hooks. I also put some slip hooks on four of my binders the work nice too.