What am i doing wrong....5th wheel wont budge

Lower landing legs till they barely touch. Don't dump bags.

 

Do NOT slide that 5th wheel too far back. You tractor is going to start behaving in ways that will scare you.

I think moving the 5th wheel one slot either forward or backwards shifts a thousand pounds. I could be wrong or out of date here. But you cannot have that plate too far back and your steering will simply go away. If you have it too far forward you are going to interfere with the tractor's systems in the back of there around the Catwalk. Airride bags under the sleeper, air lines for the trailer and so on. Even for CAB overs you might have a power steering pump or a extra oil or other fluid resevior. Trailer gets too close, knocks that off and it splashes onto your exhaust or whatever you now have a fire.

6.8 aint bad at all. That is more or less what I averaged. But I rarely, rarely touched that 5th wheel, maybe only and only if the cat scales say the numbers on the gross, axles etc cannot be moved any other way. And then only very little bit at a time until legal. The last straw option is to go back to shipper and take off pallets or rearrange freight until legal. Or.... whistle up a second company tractor trailer who is empty, meet up somewhere back to back and transfer pallets to both of you. Half here half there done, now you are two trucks rolling.

Whatever you do to finish sliding operations, make sure that 5th wheel is secure again in it's slide rails AND also secure in the kingpin jaws.

The small stuff about raising the landing gear beyond normal height and dropping the bags are rather unnecessary unless you are presented with a very specific problem that requires that particular action to be attempted. Trying to force a 5th wheel higher or lower solves nothing and actually introduces larger problems.

 

How is rocking the truck going to help unstick the pins (if this is the problem presently)? IF the pins are stuck (locked in by faulty piston or broken linkage), you're going to have to drop the trailer and make visual inspection of how the pins and mechanics work. When you disengage the pin air lock, hopefully you don't hear air leaking near the 5th wheel or elsewhere. Then we can assume air pressure is working to try and move the pins out of the locked position, at this point you need a hammer or crow bar piece of rebar, or a mix of tools to try and gently coax the pins and/or linkage to the retracted position. You'll probably hear/see a noticeable pop as it pops out under pressure. The linkage to the pins is controlled by probably two "pistons" . Even just one being stuck in the locked position is one too many.

If you can visually see the pins are not extended in to keep the 5th wheel locked, then you'll need to as was often mentioned earlier by gently rocking the unit. I'd crank down the dolly to the point of almost having no additional trailer weight on them before doing so if it's being that contrary.

But don't do this unless you're 100% certain all 4 pins are not stuck in the extended position otherwise you're liable to tear something up i.e break or damage something.

 

First, Mark the current position of the 5th wheel with a grease pencil, or write down the slot that the pins are in.

Second, drop your landing gear until it barely touches the ground.

Third, flip the switch to disengage the fifth wheel pins.

Fourth, deflate air bags to get weight off the fifth wheel.

Fifth, open window or door and rock back and forth gently. Listen for pins to release.

Sixth if pins do not release, engage differential lock, and rock back and forth harder.

Seventh, if the fifth wheel pins still dont retract, spray soapy water, or a light machine oil on the pins. Then go take a restroom break or make a phone call for 10 minutes to let the lubricant work in.

Eighth, if pins still do not retract, have truck serviced.

Ninth, if pins do retract, but the 5th wheel does not move, even with significant torque, lube the rail, then let sit a couple minutes and try again.

Tenth, if you can't get a lubed rail to move after the lube soaks in for 10 minutes, get the fifth wheel serviced.

Ex-mechanics may want to play with it longer. These instructions are for non-mechanics.

 

Next time you're at the terminal have the shop look at your fifthwheel in the mean time kelp an eye on it.It could be you wasn't on level ground or you just have to rock it to release the tention like you would tandems.

 

But it's good you want to close the gap. 95% of trucks are spec'd to where having the 5th wheel all the way forward is best for optimal fuel saving with vans and reefers, but will still allow for manageable weight distribution. You may find the steer weight to be a little over 12k with full tanks and heavy drives, but this is okay.

Once you get it moved, don't worry about it anymore.

 

A little out of date, my fontaine 5th wheel on a 13 Crapcadia will move 100-300 pounds a hole depending on how full my tanks are. I know people are going to rip me for the fuel comment, but I know what the cat scales tell me.

Also 6.8 is decent on an older truck - ie long nose, pre emmisions, etc. If I'm averaging 6.8 mpg then something's very wrong with my Crapcadia. For example my gut last week couldn't shift - over revs upshifting, missed gears down, on the fuel during every shift, it was bad - still managed to get 7.4 with a 35k avg weight. I'd have been up at 7.8.

To the OP - lube, lube and more lube. Flip the switch in and out a bunch of times and those pins will retract. That sucker probably hasn't moved in years. Me personally I set my 5th wheel as far forward as I can while being just under max steer weight.

 

Be thankful you can move your 5th wheel. Crete doesn't buy equipment to allow drivers to move our fifth wheel. They put the trucks in a specific position, and that's that. They will not move it.

My truck would lose a couple hundred lbs of capacity if I moved my chains from the front of the passenger seat to the chain rack in front of the drives. With slap full diesel and DEF, chains in front of the passenger side seat, and 34,000 lb on my drives, I weigh in at 12020 on my steers.

 

^^° THIS ^^^

If you want to slide the fifth wheel, TAKE PRESSURE OFF THE FIFTH WHEEL. Lower the landing gear. I lowered them enough to hear a slight hiss from the drive tire air bags, THEN move the fifth wheel.

I don't pull boxes anymore, so I don't have to hassle with sliding a fifth wheel anymore, but I did it dozens of times to balance box loads. You HAVE to take pressure off the fifth wheel to slide it.

 

Thanks Lepton! This is exactly the procedure I used to move the fifth wheel.

You want the trailer kingpin acting only as a way to tug the 5th wheel. That slight hiss in the air bags is when the tractor goes just above ride height and self levels back down, indicating no pressure is on the bags. I have found that in most cases I never REALLY needed to move the 5th wheel. Only time I found it really necessary is when I had a buddy of mine go on a trip with me, and he was one BIIIIGGGG dude.