Juddian:
Wheel Nut:
Does anyone know what they are actually looking for when shining a torch at the Fifth Wheel? It’s foggy at 4 AM the unit is wet and dirty. What do you see?The jaws when locked behind the pin, will appear to be a steel bar, around 1/2 to3/4 an inch thick going across the gap behind the pin, which will be fully down inside the fifth wheel.
If you look from the side view you will see the rubbing plate solidly on the fifth whee with no gaps showing anywhere.Very good point though, its worth having a good poke nose first chance anyone gets, so they familiarise themselves with what a correct connection looks like.
I’ve had a browse on t’internet and there’s no pics i can find showing this in practice clearly enough with a pin locked in place, maybe if someone has a good camera on their phone they could take a pic and put one up, unless someone has better pic search than i.
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In the pic you can clearly see the jaws, when you push against the king pin those jaws will swing around securing the locking device, which will look like a bar from behind when locked.
Found one, courtesy of ‘‘my truckalogue blogspot’’, not taken from his site but found on a general picture search
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edit, not trying to teach grannies etc Wheel Nut, i know you’ve been around a while
, just trying to encourage the younger/newer lads to take an interest in the mechanics of what we do, so they don’t come a cropper and hopefully are able to spot things going wrong before they do.
The picec of steel that fires across after the pin has locked in is called the wedge becasue its er wedge shaped and is about 2 inches deep at its thickest point, the bar you are talking about is actually the adjuster for the wedge itself, the adjuster bar controls how much the wedge can come across and is used to take the play out of the fifth wheel.