Fixing a Broken Top Rail on a Chain Link Fence

The top rail of our chain link fence broke sometime during the winter.  We can't say for sure how it happened but our theory is that the post to the right of the break, heaved out of the ground during a freeze.  This caused the post to bend away from our property until it broke the insert connection on the top rail.  This left us with a broken connection on the top rail and a bent post.

You can see, in the photo above, the broken top rail insert inside the top rail. The photo below shows the bent post with the chain attached for the ratcheting come along.

 Here are two diagrams to help familiarize yourself with chain link fencing.  I should also say that I dislike chain link fence but due to the size of our lot we cannot reasonably even think about any other type of fencing.  This fence is old and rusty so I painted the fence in front of our house in a satin black but did not paint the north side because it is jointly owned by us and my neighbor who is not fond of painted chain link.  I painted the fence to match the driveway gate and because black makes the fence visibly disappear.  Believe me I want this fence to disappear.

 skewred.com

www.FenceSupplyCo.com

The first step was straightening the post.  We used a chain and a ratcheting come along.  The come along chain was wrapped around the fence post and another chain connected the truck bumper (we used the unused hole for a trailer hitch ball) on the truck to the come along.  The truck bumper was the fixed point and by ratcheting the come along, the post slowly straightened.  We over corrected because we figured that there would be some rebound and we were correct.

Check out this video of the post straightening process. 

You can hear the Indy 500 on the radio in the background.

At this point we have a straight post but a broken rail and we need to insert the rail sleeve so that the top rail is once again one continuous rail.  But to do this we need to go to the end of the rail and remove the rail from the rail end.  This will allow us to use a small sledge hammer to make the space longer between the two pieces of top rail.

We then slid the rail sleeve onto one end and then lined up the other end of the sleeve and the other end of the top rail.  I held it so that it was aligned and R tapped the far end of the top rail until it was into the rail sleeve.  He then put on the rail end and bolted it back into the brace band.

And we were done.

R purchased the rail sleeve at Home Depot in the fence department across from the bags of concrete.  He also purchased a bag of fence ties.  These keep the chain link fence attached to the posts and top rail.  We were missing a lot of the fence ties at the bottom of the fence where it attaches to the post.  We had a long list of stuff to do so we didn't get to that today.

Total cost for 1 sleeve and 1 bag of fence ties.....$10.20 

Easy peasy

Reuse Repurpose Recycle 

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Rock on.....

The rock (not Dwayne Johnson) is almost at it's final destination. Can ya smell what we're cooking?? Unless you are a wrestling fan, you won't understand that.

It was slow going and only moved a couple of inches with each ratcheting action of the 1 1/2 ton come along. In the end, we utilized a used car part and a car tool to complete the task.

Roger was able to get a Ford truck hood from the junk yard....I mean salvage yard. Truck hoods work best since they have a inner hood. Some of the small car hoods are just two hoods pressed together and are not as rigid as one with an inner hood. Two eye bolts were installed and our little skid was ready to haul. But first we needed to support one corner of the hood until it was free of the hole. We tried cement blocks and logs, but what worked the best was a floor jack. Unfortunately, we didn't have the all aluminum jack available (in the race car trailer) and had to lift the heavy jack to put it in the hole.
Once the rock was pulled onto the truck hood, Roger attached chains to the eye bolts and hooked everything to the trailer hitch of the cube van (race hauler truck). Slowly he pulled it up the hill. Thank God the cube van has a big block. As the saying goes....there's no replacement for displacement. Unless you are a gear head you won't understand that. When he couldn't get the rock any closer he disconnected the chain from the trailer hitch and moved the cube van out of the way.


Logs were placed around the trunk of a large pine tree to protect it from the chain that was attached to the come along. He then attached another length of chain to the eye bolts and slowly ratcheted the hood up the hill.

Inch by inch the hood riding rock made it's way up the hill. We called it quits for the day when Roger's arm and shoulder were completely exhausted.

The rock still needs to come off the hood. The way that it is resting right now is not how we (actually Roger) want it sitting. He thinks it would look better standing up. The plan to make that happen, involves the utility pole and another 1 1/2 ton come along. That should be interesting, I can't wait to see how he pulls that off.

All of this rock moving has made me realize that there is a strong possibility that the pyramids were not built by Egyptian slaves nor aided by aliens from a far away planet. They were built by little Hungarians with a come along and a truck hood. Archaeologists just haven't found the truck hood yet. "absence of evidence is not proof of absence" When they do.....they will have to rewrite all the history books. You can tell everybody you read it here first.

The Chase is over and Tony Stewart came in sixth overall for the season. The last several races were rather uneventful since the overall winner, Jimmy Johnson (Lowe's), essentially had a lock on the championship unless he broke or crashed. That was not to be. Maybe we will catch Tony at The Rumble in Fort
Wayne on December 28th and 29th.