Patent ID: 7900670

Claim:
A self-tensioning snow chain for attachment to a wheel of a vehicle, the self-snow chain comprising: a snow chain; and a tensioning device including: a housing including two apertures and a top and a bottom, the top having a set of housing teeth, a bottom; the top and the bottom having respective outer surfaces; a bracket secured to the respective outer surfaces of the top and the bottom of the housing to generally shield the outer surfaces of the housing, the bracket including a cross chain attachment link; wherein the cross chain attachment link is secured to the snow chain; a ratchet spool having a set of ratchet teeth; two tensioning cords interconnected to the ratchet spool, each of the respective cords extending through one aperture; and an actuator engaged with the housing, the actuator arranged and configured to selectively actuate the engagement and disengagement of the ratchet teeth with the housing teeth; wherein each of the respective tensioning cords can be engaged with the snow chain to secure the snow chain to the wheel; wherein the ratchet spool further includes a catch on a lower surface of the ratchet spool and the tensioning device further includes a stopper having an up position and a down position, the stopper being biased toward the up position in which the stopper will block the catch when the ratchet spool is in the down position so that the ratchet spool will not rotate more than 360 degrees in the wind-up direction when the ratchet spool is in a down position.