mark1284:
How do you drop a trailer?
Is this order ok?
Get out and take susies off… release kingpin… number plate off… (check trailer brake is on which automatically applies when you take red air line off) legs down… pull out abit… lower unit suspension then off you pop
Way I do it may not be the ‘‘Official dcpc way’’ but it’s my way.
T.brake on.(they don’t all come on when red line is detatched btw
Wind legs down.
Suzies off.
Remove dog clip pull pin.
No.plate off.
Pull out while lowering suspension gradually.
Had a couple of beers…have I missed something.
To save time if t brake is at the back you could get the no plate while your there
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.
I know how they work. I have played with them for 50 years. Has anyone else? Stand on your catwalk and use a metal bar or spanner to activate it, where does the bar go, where does the jaw go? What shape is it? The bar is the jaw, it’s one piece of hinges steel!
mark1284:
How do you drop a trailer?
Is this order ok?
Get out and take susies off… release kingpin… number plate off… (check trailer brake is on which automatically applies when you take red air line off) legs down… pull out abit… lower unit suspension then off you pop
Way I do it may not be the ‘‘Official dcpc way’’ but it’s my way.
T.brake on.(they don’t all come on when red line is detatched btw
Wind legs down.
Suzies off.
Remove dog clip pull pin.
No.plate off.
Pull out while lowering suspension gradually.
Had a couple of beers…have I missed something.
+1. No. plate after suzies for me but makes no odds.
Had no beer, not yet anyway
Yorkielad:
I always shine torch up to make sure bars gone across too.
Do it on a driving assessment for one of the big boys and you’ll get extra marks!.
Do this also, Only takes a second to check. Saves a whole world of excrement.
robroy:
Way I do it may not be the ‘‘Official dcpc way’’ but it’s my way.
T.brake on.(they don’t all come on when red line is detatched btw
Wind legs down.
Suzies off.
Remove dog clip pull pin.
No.plate off.
Pull out while lowering suspension gradually. Have a couple of beers…have I missed something.
Probably not the modern way of doing things old timer.
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.
1
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.
I realise you are not teaching grannies, neither am I. I just wonder how many people do something because they were told to do it. Without the reasons for it or what to look for.
My missus puts eggs in the fridge because her mother did. Eggs come out of a warm chicken, are put in insulated boxes, they are sold in supermarkets and kept on ambient shelves, she carries them home in a hot car or bus with bleach, baked beans and biscuits and puts them in a fridge [emoji14]
My method - it works for me .
Dropping trailer -
1 - apply handbrake in the cab
2 - lines off - fifth wheel still attached so nothing can go wrong .
3- legs down - again fifth wheel keeping all together so nothing should go wrong
4 -trailer brake check / pull on .
5 - number plate off
6 - dog clip and pull the fifth wheel handle
7 - ease forward a few inches drop the air suspension wiat for the midlift axle to lift and then ease out - get the suspension back to drive height.
Lifting a trailer -
1 - stop , get out and check the trailer brake is on - also take a look round the trailer for any obvious defects - no point hooking into a trailer with a flat wheel or a back door hanging off it - just the obvious simple stuff . Also take a good look at how the trailer is sitting - is it pointed to the sky front up like a stray scud missile or pointed into the ground like a tunnel boring machine ready to start the next channel crossing. Depending on how its sitting you can possibly use the air suspension leveling valve on the trailer to level things up a little ( if there is one fitted - some tankers dont have them )
2 - back in until I feel the unit touch the trailer . Depending on the height I will either lift or lower the air in the unit to get in below the trailer . On flats , curtainsiders fridges I use the front marker light of the trailer as a reference point in the mirror if I havent felt resistance by the time the marker light dissapears behind the wind kit I stop get out and check that the fith wheel is actually touching the bottom of the trailer - at this point if everythings good reverse on in to I hear the click of the fith wheel and a couple of tugs to check . If theres still a gap then its time to get the landing legs wound down in low gear until the trailer is on the plate and then hook up and tug test .
Tanks are slightly different as you dont have as good a reference point with the marker lights/front corner and a little more care is required . Often dropped empty , shifted about with a shunter , loaded and dropped again with a full load on the air drops and the front of the tank goes up meaning a missed pin is very likely. Ease in close , get out and check, then get a little closer and check again - as many times as you need to make sure before going for the hook up .
3 - dog clip on
4- lines on
5- legs up
6- trailer brake off
7- number plate on
8 - trailer checks - wheel nuts / tyres . lights etc etc
superscaniaV8:
So is anybody going to discuss ‘split-coupling’ ? *runs out of room screaming *
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Don’t do it - end of discussion .
Its complicated and has to many chances for things to go wrong and as such I hate it . There is no reason to be in between a trailer and a unit these days with all these MAVIS rails etc . Why would a company put its workers lives at risk rather than spend a few quid putting a rail on the trailer allowing you to connect the lines from ground level ? Profit before a drivers life - not somewhere I want to work .
superscaniaV8:
So is anybody going to discuss ‘split-coupling’ ? *runs out of room screaming *
Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk
I was just about to… But now, out of consideration, I won’t.
When I was at Blake’s they had a trailer on a bay being used to store cheese; it must have been well over 40 tonnes. They asked the shunter to pull it off and park it up, so he backed under, put the red line on, lifted the suspension up to max (it was an ordinary unit) and dragged it across the yard. Then he reversed into a gap between two other trailers, all with no problem.
It was when he pulled forward to straighten it up that he felt it go. It was moving forward so the legs not only buried themselves in the tarmac but then buckled under the weight. They checked the 5th wheel and it was working perfectly.
It took a recovery truck and two big forklifts to get the trailer back up.
beefy4605:
Tanks are slightly different as you dont have as good a reference point with the marker lights/front corner and a little more care is required .
Agreed. The pin on most tanks is right on the front edge of the chassis, unlike most 45ft curtain-side trailers where it’s recessed 5ft. Like you say, it’s hard to judge. Also don’t forget you’ve got 2 sets of legs on belly tanks . Seen a few inexperienced drivers that have forgotten that small detail much to their cost .
Yeah definitely double check the trailer brake is on. But surely it wont go nowhere if the trailer brake and unit brake is on then releasing the kingpin. But yes definitely worth releasing the kingpin after the legs are down just incase
Same as ROB…but if your dropping on a bay…take the nu plate off before reversing onto bay…missed that a few times, and got blackened climbing underneath…ha ha
truckyboy:
Same as ROB…but if your dropping on a bay…take the nu plate off before reversing onto bay…missed that a few times, and got blackened climbing underneath…ha ha
How ya doing TB.
Is it right that when you started out it would have been just a case of
Detatch the horse.
Feed it.
■■■■ off home.
Juddian:
it’s thankfully an incredibly rare event, but as said it takes just a few seconds to look and you know absolutely that you’ve got it, i only do one tug test and then look see.
It’s true. In the last 14 years I’ve ducked under and checked the jaws are locked on every trailer I’ve ever picked up, even if just shunting it across a yard. In that time I had one dodgy event. I did the tug test and all was ok. But when I checked the jaws they were only half across. I’m not sure why that happened, and I’m not sure how far I’d have got with that trailer, but I thank my lucky stars I did check.
Another thing I check is wheel nuts. I give a quick hand test to about half the nuts on each wheel of each trailer I pick up. On two occasions in 14 years I’ve found wheel nuts that were completely loose. If a wheel comes off and goes thruogh somebody’s windscreen on the motorway, who gets the blame?
I sometimes get ridiculed for checking the jaws with a torch and hand testing nuts (my own nuts!), but when I explain that I’ve found loose wheel nuts and half closed jaws over the years the ridiculing party always looks at me with a slightly horrified look, as if to say “I didn’t know things like that could happen!” as they realise that’s probably happened to them too.
As Juddian said, these things are incredibly rare, but it only takes one slack jaw and you’re in the lap of the gods.
ezydriver:
Another thing I check is wheel nuts. I give a quick hand test to about half the nuts on each wheel of each trailer I pick up.
Yep, me too! Exactly as you’ve described.
Another thing I do which I know so many don’t is raise the air all the way up on the unit during the walk-around and give the inner drive axle tyres a good slap whilst giving the treads a visual and making sure that chunk of gravel isn’t anything more sinister, if they sound ‘duller’ than the outer then the unit doesn’t move (any further than the fitters garage) till it’s checked by a fitter (I don’t have a pressure gauge and if I’m honest I haven’t the foggiest what the correct pressures would be anyway)
I’m still hard pushed to make my actual full walk-around last longer than 5 minutes and we have to clock at least 10 mins at our place, so the rest of the time is spent wet wiping the steering wheel and dials and levers (I’m not mentioning knobs because of you immature lot… Doh!) because of the joys of never having the same unit twice and no idea what dirty scrote drove it before me, and of course filling out the defect book and my diary, all in all with all that prep, check and coffee poured I’m still only a minute or two past the 10 minute allocated ‘pre-check’ time.
but it’s my way.
, 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.
But now, out of consideration, I won’t. 
. Seen a few inexperienced drivers that have forgotten that small detail much to their cost