What do you do if the kingpin jumps your 5th wheel?

Had this happen to me a couple weeks ago. Had just sat for 5.5 hours at tank wash(at this point quite frustrated) and although I was last to drop the trailer they had raised the gear while in the wash bay. Lucky for me my fifth wheel doesn't pivot easily. I simply just leveled my fifth wheel and dumped my bags and had enough to get out from under. LUCKILY it was an empty trailer. Never have done it on a loaded trailer. Although our preloaders struggle on dropping trailers at the proper height most times.

 

So your suspension was all the way down? It seems like raising up the suspension to bring up the trailer, then cranking down the landing gear, then lowering suspension, would allow you to pull out from underneath it...


Suspension may not be the right word, I've never driven a yard truck.

 

Running under the King Pin happens because the landing gear has been run out to much. The cause of this is someone not knowing how to drop a trailer. (Also the yard dog sometimes drops the trailer into a hole or runs the gear down themselves. Those yard dogs are real dogs.)

When dropping a trailer, crank the landing gear down leaving an inch and a half above the ground. Unhook your lines and pull the pin. Then lower your airbags. At that point your trailer should be touching the ground an you can safety pull away. The next driver who hooks that trailer will not have to deal with the trailer being frozen on the ground or the gear being jammed up.

I keep a long wrecking bar in the tractor. Lower you air bags and ask another driver for help in tilting your fifth wheel to get past the king pin. That is what the bar is for.

 

A kingpin lock is just about the right size to put under the front of the 5th wheel to keep it tilted towards the cab. Just don't ask me how I know this.

 

Don t be like the one guy I knew that called his breakdown department when he jumped his fifth wheel. Needless to say, after the shop transferred him to the safety department to explain what happened, he was told to go stage his truck at a shop, and clean his truck out

 

WTF? Apparently I have been giving yard dogs too much respect?

Lower the fifth wheel and get on with business. You got a hydraulic fifth wheel us OTR guys have to get out of the truck and tilt the fifth wheel by hand if we don't have air bags. You make this sound like a real struggle.

 

One thing is for sure. Once you do it, be a long, long time before you do it again lol.

 

I always GOAL, sometimes several times when hooking to a trailer. I make sure the fifth wheel is at a good height before backing in to close the jaws. Lower the trailer if it is too high. Drop the air bags if it is too low.

 

I just realized that in cdl school they did not teach us that as the method to drop a trailer. The school had us crank the dolley down all the way to the ground.

So then at my first job other drivers complained to me about me leaving the trailers too high. plus some of them liked to drop their air bags to get under the trailer, or when dropping a trailer. So then I knew why they were all complaining about me leaving trailers high, and I started leaving them lower by keeping the dolley a couple inches off the ground when dropping the trailer.

 

I cuss the previous driver first for not knowing how to drop a trailer. Fyi, drop the landing gear about 2 to 4 inches from the ground, then lower youre bags. Your fellow driver who hooks up to it next will Ty.