Sliding the fifth wheel tips and tricks. Truck is riding funny.

My dad said "the only stupid question is the one not asked"

 

I remember as a kid riding with my dad and Jackie Banks. We pulled over after crossing into Iowa. Flip the 5th wheel slide and button it up! You had to every time you crossed east of the Missouri.

 

What is the rule of thumb for how much weight moves per slot on the fifth wheel?

If I remember correctly around 100 pounds moves from the steers to the drives for each notch.

My opinion is ideally the "final" adjustment for the fifth wheel should be done when the fuel tanks are full. OP did not state if the tanks were full or on fumes. it would be rare for added fuel to be balanced perfectly between the drives and steers.

I dialed mine in with full tanks at a shipper that had a free to use scale when I was loaded and parked there over night. Stretched the trailer out to put max load on the tractor and adjusted till I felt it was perfect for weight distribution with full tanks. Then just put the trailer tandems back to the previous spot and parked.

 

It used to by 500 pounds when we had the big locking pins. A lot of people will say 250 for the small ones, but I've found it to be much more variable truck to truck depending on where the fuel tanks are.

With a cascadia I've always found about 2/3s of the fuel went to the steers, and 1/3 to the drives.

 

It depends on the load. There is no general rule, or there are 3 million individual general rules about sliding tandems and 5th wheels. When I weighed my truck I would write down the 5th wheel and tandem position, slide tandems/5th wheel/both as necessary and re-weigh. Then I would write down the new positions on the re-weigh and divide the weigh shifted by the whole position change and that would tell me what the weight shift per hole on my load in this truck was. I found I moved the 5th wheel so seldom I just left it at the position I chose, unless I had no other option and had to move it. That might be 1 or 2 times per year. Sliding tandems is what changes 95% of the time.