Why you should always check your fifth wheel.

Can anyone post some pics off open and shut jaws?
Might be usefull to any newbee or outsider to trucking to see what is being discussed here.

 

My experience has been if you see anything shiny on the jaws, it didn't shut all the way. When I dropped a trailer (on purpose) in -36 degree weather, one of the springs broke under the 5th wheel. I didn't know this until I hooked to the next trailer, did a tug test, then crawled under and saw about an inch of bright shiny metal on one of the normally dark 5th wheel jaws. The other problem you can run into is if the head of the kingpin sits on top of the jaws, but that one's pretty obvious as long as you go under and look at it.