fifth wheel recommendation

I've rebuilt many of them, it isn't fun but not hard. It's amazing how parts can be completely covered in grease their whole life, yet be stuck into place.

First thing I do is take it off, flip it over, and steam clean the heck out of it. You'll still get greasy though.

 

If I drink the six pack will it rebuild itself?

 

This guy didn't need a 5th wheel..... Didn't work out real well, but there are things he could have done differently too.

 

I considered rebuilding my Fontaine. There's lots of good videos on YouTube that show how to do it from various manufacturers. I even considered cleaning the fifth wheel myself.

Instead I opted to pay $175 to have a professional outfit steam clean the engine, undercarriage, and fifth wheel. Then I had a professional do the rebuild. That all took about a day out of my schedule and was well worth what I paid to keep me running.

If you grease your fifth wheel, make a HABIT of cutting excess grease off the edges and in the jaws. I have a 3" wide paint scraper dedicated to this job. Excess grease will gum up the locking jaws and get all over your rails if you aren't diligent about cleaning off the excess.

 

A guy gave us a 55 galllon drum of grease that he was just wanting to get rid of. I have no idea what kind it is and there is no easy way to get it into a gun so that is our 5th wheel grease. That was probably 30 years ago and it's greased 4 truck's 5th wheels during that time. We haven't used but about 1/2 of it yet.

 

Dang rookie... Dont he know it takes a Ranger to pull them there trailers!

 

rebuilt my fw35 today. 3 hours start to Finnish including starting the truck dropping my trailer moving it over to the shop power washing off the 5th wheel and putting tools away after it was done. went pretty smooth, getting the adjusting rod out of the fork took some oxy acetylene. without that you could probably just cut the rod off with a death wheel. kit includes new parts to replace them. pins that hold the jaws in took a few mins each with a 2 lb sledge and a big punch to knock them out. otherwise very simple process. and its the first 5th wheel iv ever rebuilt myself.

no specialty tools needed other than i needed a 2 inch plug to simulate the kingpin i found a seal driver in my kit that was exactly 2 inch outside diam and used that.

re arranged my trailers after i was done 5th is working flawlessly and no longer sloppy very happy. my jaws were worn egg shaped where they lock to the kingpin and the pins were worn that attach the jaws to the 5th wheel. everything else was good but replaced anyway kit comes with all the parts but really could have just slapped new jaws and jaw pins in and called it a day and saved an hour or so.

i flipped the 5th wheel over and laid it upside down on the frame rails and slid it to the back and just used the frame rails as my work bench.

now that i know that the fw35's are pretty easily rebuilt. i would even more recommend them. and would buy another one if my top plate gets excessively worn in the future.

 

Holland all day, every day. You hook your puller and pull. No complicated jiggling or raising/lowering of the bar (I've used a couple Fontaines and didn't like them).

Greased or no grease is going to depend on your trailer situation. Are you using only a single trailer or doing drop and hooks? I wouldn't doubt the no grease fifth wheels are more than worth their money if you are only ever pulling the one trailer, but I've never used one.

 

New question for this thread. I got this truck 6 months ago, my first. My 5th wheel seems to have some front-to-back play in it. At first I thought it was just a cheap design but then someone said this is a sign it needs a rebuild.

When I drop a trailer I have to set the trailer brake and then push the tractor back against the trailer before setting the tractor brake. Otherwise there's a good chance the bar won't pull. If that happens, I have to do the same thing: release tractor brake, nudge backwards against the trailer, and set tractor brake while gently pushing against trailer with feathered clutch. When I do this I can feel the tractor move and hear the noise when the kingpin hits the front of the enclosure. Then the jaws release like normal.

Not sure which brand or model it is. You have to lift once to release the bar from the locked position, then pull and lift again and let go to lock it in the open position. So the questions are:

What's the cost of a shop rebuild? I gather from this thread maybe 500-600 should do it, is this the right ballpark?

Also, it's supposed to slide but doesn't. It's locked all the way back. Would this be a separate repair from the rebuild? If so, what's the cost range on that?

And if we're getting close to the cost of a replacement instead, then what would a less expensive, yet still halfway respectable replacement cost? It's a 2013 Cascadia with over 400k so I don't want to spend a bunch extra for top of the line, but I don't like using cheap Chinese junk either. It'll just be pulling dry van or reefer, nothing unusual foreseen at this time.

Thanks in advance.