How often do you grease your fifth wheel?

Some 5th wheels don't need lubricant so check to see what you have. A few years ago urethane pads were put on some 5th wheels and putting grease on these will damage them.

 

Take my money! I am looking into this, 30 bucks online but 40 bucks shipping, I put in an inquiry to see where I can pick one up in person. Thanks for the info, also, any update on your usage of it would be much appreciated.

 

I buy a case of grease pads. Self contained plastic bags with grease in them.

Every drop and hook gets at least two pads onto the 5th wheel. If I can use a paint stirrer to recover excess off the edges and lay it back onto the plate I don't use so many pads. In winter I keep that thing greased. I also remember hitting the grease points now and then under the frame with a gun. No different than greasing a CAT 936 front end wheeled loader once a day. No grease, no work. It literally gets arthritis, the steel kind you don't want.

There was only one instance in which I never greased the 5th wheel. We had a pad on ours at one company where the covered wagon stayed hitched to for weeks and months. It was rare to drop it. I think I disconnected it maybe 5 times that year for shop work and PC bobtailing.

 

I have used those bags, convenient, but I decided I didn't want to leave what resembles used condoms scattered on the road.

 

Never had a problem with that.

We never thought about that stuff back in those days. Trash talking and teasing took other forms of entertainment back then.

 

That is fine you want to litter, but I don't. I always hate seeing truckers throw their cigarettes out the window, the piss jugs are even worse. It's an Industry full of self-centered people.

 

I drop and plop a lot and go home bobtail, so at least weekly. I do keep a plastic container. (Think lunch meat type) full of grease. When needed I use that, then refill it when I'm at a yard. Done that several times thru out the year depending on where I'm at.

 

I just replaced it for the first time (about 2 1/2 years after install) about 3 or 4 months ago... not because it wore out, but because I broke it. It had started sagging a little when I drop the trailer and was never a big deal, but it caught just right on the edge of the fifth wheel and folded under itself and snapped. So if you get one and it starts to sag, just make sure you turn the sag to the side so that it doesn't get hung on the plate. I bought mine, both times, at Truckers Supply in Meridian, MS, but the last few KW dealers I have been in had them in stock as well.

 

Everytime I take a bath even if I don't need the bath.

 

I have not said a word about littering. For your information what happens at the 5th wheel plate was NOT a problem in those days. And I was not a litterer.

Its too bad assumptions are made. It makes a ### of you and me.