Fifth wheel care

Fifth wheel care

The Kenworth Customer Service Center offers a wealth of advice regarding fifth wheel care. First and foremost, think safety when you are inspecting your fifth wheel. There are several things that a driver can do:

•Keep the fifth wheel lubricated.
•Make sure that it is still connecting properly to the trailer.
•Verify that a sliding fifth wheel is locking properly.
•All this can and should be done without touching the fifth wheel yourself.

 Before you start your inspection, have the entire fifth wheel system thoroughly steam-cleaned. Clean the top plate, brackets, slide plate, mounting angles, and fasteners. Next, so that you can take a good look at the fifth wheel, use a trouble light or flashlight for your visual inspection. Plan to take 10 or 15 minutes for this project.

Test those jaws. This is the safest way to examine your fifth wheel’s jaws and make sure they aren’t worn out…it’s a two-person test, so ask someone to help you out for a moment.

•Latch the fifth wheel onto the trailer as usual.
•Set the trailer brakes.
•Have your assistant stand where he or she can see the fifth wheel.
•Move the chassis back and forth slightly.
•Have your assistant watch to see if the plate moves relative to the trailer.

If the plate does move, the jaws are probably worn. If the jaws are worn, the fifth wheel may be one that can be rebuilt rather than replaced, so ask your supplier or dealer about that option.

 It is possible to have fifth wheels adjusted, but it’s not typically necessary. Talking with Jost, Kenworth learned that this is not something that usually needs to be done with their products, and in fact, frequent adjustments can cause premature wearing of the locking mechanism. Jost states it has many fifth wheels in service with over 400,000 miles on them that have not needed adjustment.

Fontaine said that if it’s needed, its fifth wheels are easy to adjust—they can even be adjusted while the trailer is coupled to the fifth wheel if the situation calls for it.

SAF Holland provides manuals, as do the others, for when a fifth wheel needs adjusting.

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