How do you unlock the kingpin from the 5th wheel?

Nothing to stop them!

Once a Mack truck was pulling a belly dump trailer down a Arkansas State Highway & some how he hit the air vale & the belly dump opened up, he spread his load of gravel about 2 foot thick for a long ways down that highway. Sure made a big mess on the highway.

The highway department brought out a road grader & it took him a long time to get it all off of the highway.

 

Seen cab controlled trailer slider set up with an electrical wire controlling an air switch to put air to a cylinder to open the slider pins. Same type of cylinder as the one on the fifth wheel slider.

 

I was making fun of my company's orientation video at crowder .

Inside joke guys.

Not a #### one of those things here. That's me under the trailer reattaching the spring blocking your way. Soooooorrrrryyyyyy wanna grab thay lever for me ? xD

 

Theres a release arm on the side of the 5th wheel as seen in this picture. Once you ease the pressure on the locking jaws by backing up against the trailer, you pull on this release arm.

 

If you are dropping a loaded trailer first off crank as much as you can, don't stop once the landing gear touches the floor, second slowly pull up until you feel, hear, or think the kingpin is off the jaws, then drop your bags and slowly move away from trailer. If you try to pull away with all that weight on you, your truck is gonna jerk, then once you pull away it's going to spit you forward and you can hyperextend an airbag off the base plus you will look like a total idiot, oh and you have the risk of bending the trailer k brace on the landing gear.

 

Switch guards, very hard to flip by accident.

 

Also my truck required a 5 second hold on the switch with the red knob pulled otherwise all it did was beep at me.no way to do it by accident.

 

There's a handle you pull.I have a 5th wheel puller I use.which I advise you to get one.The handle can be really hard to pull especially with Winter upon us and the ice build up.

 

Yeah, there is always that possibility. Some of these roads are so bumpy you can see yourself activating the wrong switch, even if you're not a yahoo. I was eastbound on the 10 over the weekend, saw 3 big rigs overturned, one in a ditch, open road, moderate rain, early morning, no traffic. How does that happen? I'm sure those drivers didn't have any plan to wreck when they set out. So, bad things can happen any time.

I don't really trust those air activated tandem pin release devices for a couple other reasons. One thing, no mechanism is perfect every time. I saw a driver in Van Horn trying over and over to get his to work, and it just wouldn't release. He couldn't get out and hit it with his 4lb maul, either. Something else, you're pulling a trailer with up to 46K in it, aren't you going to get out and check that the pins really are engaged through the rails? I know I would. I guess I'm just getting old - I don't trust luxury. Nothing is perfect every time, you don't really know the pins are engaged, and it's my responsibility to be safe. Oh well, next they'll have automatic chain throwers. Unless they do already, of course.

 

I don't ever do it this way. If you crank the landing gear after the pads are on the ground, the next driver will have the chance of sliding the 5th wheel past the pin, a real pain. I like PattyJ's way, me and a lot of drivers, stop the landing gear about an inch above the pavement/ground, and release the air bag pressure to drop it the rest of the way, pull out.

Who cares if you "look like an idiot?" Does it make any difference what you "look like?" I'd never drive thinking about what I "look like." I already know.