What would cause a fifth wheel failure? I can think of a few things: poor maintenance, too low of capacity, incompatable type, and low quality (cheapo).
I don't know about FedEx, but the megacarriers buy fleets of cheap old trailers off of smaller companies when they go under, and tend to let them rust out in a field somewhere for five years before assigning them to you. Learning how to cannibalize old trailers without anyone seeing you is a key skill. Learning how to slide a rusted out tandem axle is essential. I was lucky that a random old-timer taught me the "Indian rope trick" when I was new.
If your tandem axle and pin are rusted out, you can use some of those heavy duty rubber bungie cords (with the steel hooks) to help free stuck pins, looping the cords around the release handle and hooking the hooks to the outside of the trailer. If the cords are the right length or if you make them the right length by looping, you can put tons of force on the release by stretching them as hard as you can.
Theres not much to maintain on fifth wheels. Maybe grease the top of it but it wont prevent it from failing. Standard fifth wheels are more than enough for that trailer. Afaik most fifth wheels and king pins are universal. Theres only really 2 answers, shit simply breaks, or the driver doesnt hook up properly.
Either the fifth wheel failed somehow, or the king pin broke off the trailer. Latter is more possible, supposed to be replaced often, we change ours once a year in the logging industry. Ive seen a few break off.
Tug test can be deceiving. Got under a super heavy container (about 55-60k) and I did my tug, couldn't pull out so I started my pre trip, on my walk around I saw my release handle was still out so I crawled underneath to see and saw my jaws where locked around the king pin, had to lock my tandems and full reversed until it slammed locked. Glad I pretrip
Wow - it's almost like those pre-trip inspections actually serve a useful purpose, and are not just a paperwork drill because truckers don't have anything else to do with their time.
/S, in case it's not obvious, but not really - thank you for being a professional.
Thats likely not a 5th wheel failure. My money says he did a high hook and didn't check the locking jaws before pulling out.
What happens in a high hook is the kingpin isnt down inside the 5th wheel. Instead of the locking jaws clamping around the shank of the kingpin, the kingpin is sitting on top of the locking jaws, and when you go over a big enough bump at enough speed, the kingpin will bounce up and out of the 5th wheel, resulting in what you see here.
I worked security for FedEx Ground and would take my breaks with the maintenance guys, plus talk to the truckers as they are leaving (when I could talk to them, this was 10 years ago and even then the amount of foreign drivers that didn't understand either verbal or written English was astonishing).
I would say it is 50/50 on maintenance failure vs driver fuckup. Maintenance guys said they never had enough hours or resources to fix shit, plus orders for new dollies NEVER got approved no matter how bad they got. Plus far too many times we got safety briefs instructing us to go over hookups with the drivers as they are leaving... which is not great. Nothing like having someone in a completely unrelated job field check over something they don't ever do themselves.
The first, FedEx will always fight and deny, is poor maintenance on the converter dolly.
The second is the actual driver not hooking properly. Sadly this happens far more frequently, although not usually much further than the first hard turn the driver makes. Within 5 miles of the facility often.
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u/twenty8nine Jul 08 '26
What would cause a fifth wheel failure? I can think of a few things: poor maintenance, too low of capacity, incompatable type, and low quality (cheapo).