Locking Jaw Refusing To Release Kingpin

I will say that in addition to buying the Fontaine rebuild kit, I paid for a professional to do the rebuild.

 

They are designed so the "default" is closed. This makes them much more prone to not release that to release when you don't want them to.

 

That is the fifth wheel release bolt. The whole purpose of that bolt is to hit and release the locking jaw from the kingpin. Most fifth wheels have one.

 

That happened to me once when i was hooking up to an empty trailer. I back in to engage the trailer and the lock jaws for some reason closed wrong, they were crucked, and then the release arm got stuck and i couldnt free myself from the trailer. I basically had to rock back and forth for about 10 minutes and finally the lock jaw straightened out and everything worked. Its wierd how things like this always seem to happen when your short on time.

 

Only the Holland fifth wheel has that deign unless the Chinese have copied it

 

A lot of people have told me it costs virtually the same to replace the whole 5th wheel as it does to re-build it. Any truth to that one?

 

Reminds me of going on a factory tour in China with a potential US based customer. We did the tea ritual in the conference room, then set out for a tour of the facilities.

The factory manager made a bee line down the hall to a door labeled "Copy Room". I thought to myself, "Okay, he wants to show off his photocopiers".

Wrong.

The "Copy Room" is where several dozen engineers were back engineering products from brand names. Prominently displayed in the show room were "copies" of the patented designs of my customer.

They didn't get the business. The factory manager had no clue why my customer would be upset they copied his designs without permission.

 

I just paid $950 for a brand new plate , started having the same problem as OP on my Simplex lite wheel

 

I thought it was, "cheaper to buy a new trailer than to fix the kingpin or apron"?