Help me with hooking up to a trailer please

not all of us ladies like the Johnson you know. some of us are strictly about the tah tahs, the buns and the vah jay jay.

 

This is an excellent procedure. I've added some steps BEFORE your step number one that helps ensure no high hooks and a much better chance for a solid hook.

1. Before backing I dump the air bags. This keeps maximum grease where it belongs, on the fifth wheel instead of the front edge of the trailer.

2. Back until the top of the front drives are at the front edge of the trailer.

3. GOAL to make sure the fifth wheel is in front of the kingpin and inspect the kingpin and plate.

4. Raise the air bags.

5. GOAL to make sure the landing gear are raised off the ground. If not raise the gear.

Bear in mind the last driver may have put the landing gear at the appropriate height, but been in a dip or pothole.

 

Grease is the Word! Every time I go to hook up to my trailer I have a mind to put grease on the 5th wheel. But I wouldn't do it til the knew the trailer was the right height. See most of the time I go into the terminals and drop my trailer and the yard jockey docks it and put it out on the line when they are done. Sometimes he drops it low sometimes he drops it high and very rarely he drops it Baby Bear (just right).

So when you've been doing it long enough you don't need to get out, you make a mental note how far in the tires are in relation to the edges of the trailer sides, that's your alignment. Next I'm looking at the tires in relation to the height of the trailer like just last night the tires were higher than the trailer so I knew it was too low. So I dump the air bags and put wood blocks on the frame rails and pump up the air again trailer is lifted then lower landing gear real easy. Dump air remove wood and grease 5wheel and back under. At a certain point I reach over and pump up the air bags as I'm backing up (I've done it so many times, believe me I did a million goals to get this good) and click in and zero loss of grease.

Other times they drop the trailer either too high or just right but the trailers are all 2 inches apart so no way to get in there and lower the landing gear. So what I have to do is put 2 or 3 2x4's on top of the 5th wheel. dump air and back under the nose of trailer then pump up air and hook up red line only. Now gently pull trailer out of hole to be able to acess crank handle. Get rid of greasy wood and hook up.

These are sort of advanced techniques. It makes me sick to see a truck with a fresh PM 5th wheel dripping with grease and the driver carelessly just scrapes it all off the nose of the trailers. A real slick 5th wheel makes for such a much nicer ride especially on slick roads in the winter.

 

The only dumb question is the one NOT ASKED....Had a rookie driver from another company approach and ask me Why he could not latch on to the trailer he was backing under. Well I go over and eye-ball things and told him to just crank down the landing legs about 3 inches ......

 

Whats a high hook?
Get a trailer with no landing gear, and pick it up with a 70k lb load on it, and try to get it to go over the 5th wheel!

View attachment 73317

I have picked up more than one box trailer that fell off the truck after he screwed up, in truck stops. I have ramps on my truck to pick the RGN up, and only charge $20 to do it! Bargain....


Martin

 

Quick question to the OP... not as many of them out there any more, but does your fifth wheel have a bolt sticking out of the front of it? If there is, are you checking to see that the but is flush against the plate after hooking? If there's a gap, it's probably time for an adjustment, and if the but is all the way out to the end of the bolt, then it may be time for a rebuild.
Also, when you're shifting, are you feeling any slop (jarring motion as the kingpin slides slightly, reacting to the speed hesitation between shifts)?

 

Tug and look. I didnt once and almost dropped the trailer with landing gear up. Relied on latch clicking it was my first load,l. Trailer was half way off the fifth wheel. Dropped landing gear, disconnected lines. Did it again, this time checking jaws. That was last November. Been checking fifth wheel ever sense. Have received guff over it but would rather do it and get guff then lose my job because i destroyed a trailer,