Fifth wheel innovations to tighten up your trailer connection
An often overlooked component, the fifth wheel (and its successful coupling with a trailer kingpin) is responsible for holding your equipment together and might even, in extreme situations, save your life. We previously detailed how critical the fifth wheel was to one trucker, 26-year-old Sysco driver Sydney Thomas, when her day cab nearly plummeted off the Clark Memorial Bridge into the Ohio River last March. Though the incident was the result of another driver erratically swerving into her oncoming lane, Thomas was kept safe, suspended over the river below for over 45 minutes, by the secure connection between her reefer trailer and cab.
While the Fontaine Fifth Wheel No-Slack 6000 Series top plate that the kingpin held onto has been around for a while, the industry is always working to tighten up that connection with new innovations and technology in an effort to simplify maintenance. Here are some areas fifth wheel innovations are helping to tighten that tractor-trailer connection:
Proper coupling
When it comes to ensuring that a trailer is securely connected to the cab, Fontaine Fifth Wheel’s SmartConnect system uses a light on the side of the fifth wheel that turns green to indicate to the driver that the truck is properly connected to the trailer.
“The driver gets out, he does his walk around, he sees a green light, he knows he’s ready to pull off the yard,” said Brian Bowen, aftermarket sales manager for Fontaine Fifth Wheel, adding that the system is available on the aftermarket. “You buy a new top plate replacement, and it comes with the light already in it. All you do is run a power cable and hook the light up.”
The system goes beyond ensuring proper coupling, indicating to the driver that there may be an issue with components of the fifth wheel that require a closer look.
“One of the coolest features is it’ll blink three times if it needs to be adjusted, and it’ll blink five times if it needs to be rebuilt,” Bowen continued, “so if the driver sees it’s green but it’s blinking, he needs to tell his maintenance guy, ‘Oh, by the way, this needs to be adjusted.’”
Fontaine also offers a pull handle that can be installed without taking the top plate off, meaning it may be an easy swap that can ease technician trouble.
“Our pull handle is a straight pull handle, and we see a lot of pull handles going down the road that are bent, so that actually can mess up the operation, make it harder to pull, make it harder to open,” Bowen offered.
SAF-Holland offers a similar ELI-te (Electronic Lock Indicator-technology enhanced) feature as an optional add-on to assist with proper coupling.
Smooth greasing
Self-greasing, auto-lube, and low-lube fifth wheels are readily available for various applications, sometimes taking the responsibility of greasing out of the hands of the technician completely.
SAF-Holland’s low-lube FW33 fifth wheels don’t require greasing on the top plate, only underneath, which also mitigates fifth wheels’ environmental impact and infractions.
“Certain states have emissions laws that if you have grease hanging off the edge that could potentially fall off onto the road, that becomes an EPA violation,” noted Tony Ryan, technical services manager with SAF-Holland, “so that becomes a non-event with these.”
Jost also offers a low-lube option with Teflon pads on top of the fifth wheel, but the option is more fit for applications with low coupling frequency, said Robert Marsh, VP of truck product sales, OEM and fleet, Jost.
“If you’re coupling up and uncoupling quite a bit, you’re going to damage the pads, so you want to stay married to the trailer the majority of the time if you’re going to use that type of fifth wheel,” he cautioned. “It’s a feature that a lot of people like, because you don’t have to grease the top plate, but you’ve got to make sure that you have it in the right application or the pads won’t last.”
Badger Product Group’s BFW1 gear-greased fifth wheel works off of the motion of the truck itself, with no air lines, motors, or outside power sources.
“As the fifth wheel rotates back and forth on the mounts on the truck, it draws grease from two replaceable grease cartridges on the back of the fifth wheel, pressing up from the plate, keeping a consistent fluid film on that fifth wheel plate itself,” explained Troy Widtfeldt, director of sales and marketing at Badger Product Group. “The patent-pending mechanism is fully mechanical and removes the lack of lubrication as a point of failure.”
Impact resistance
One innovation incorporated into Sampa’s new fifth wheel design is a reinforced steel locking collar. It increases resistance to impact, according to Bruno Scuracchio, VP of OEM sales and engineering at Sampa US.
“In a real-world environment, that fifth wheel suffers a lot of impact from the kingpin when the truck is backing to the trailer, and if you have a plastic collar, although it’s cheaper and easier to replace when they wear out, because of the impact they end up breaking,” he explained. “The resistance on the steel collar is much higher.”
Tools and components
With proper maintenance in mind, having top of-the-line fifth wheel technology won’t be enough to cover all your bases. Making sure to use the right tools and components, and even right materials, for the job is just as essential.
Gear Head’s soy-based grease pads are a clean lubrication option that eliminates the need for messy grease guns, allowing for simple application.
Atro's fifth wheel parts and bushing kits leverage polyurethane components that are 3 to 5 times stronger than standard rubber parts, according to the company.
Bill Halliburton, area sales manager for Atro, explained that the better durability and resistance is because the polymer used for the components isn’t porous.
“Rubber is porous, so the oil, grease and all that permeates that rubber and starts breaking it down,” he said.
Another item, SAF-Holland’s kingpin gauge, is an easy-to-use tool that can be used to check the length and straightness of the kingpin, helping to identify worn down, undersized 2˝ and 3-1/2˝ SAE kingpins that need to be replaced.
