If it doesn’t come loose, then we are almost ready. After you feel the hook, put the truck in low gear and “tug” on the fifth wheel. Continue to back under the trailer until you hear and feel the fifth wheel jaws lock onto the trailer kingpin.If it is, roll up the landing gear until the trailer apron touches the fifth wheel. My rule of thumb if the tractor doesn’t “squat” and pick the trailer off the ground, GET OUT AND LOOK. The height of the fifth wheel to the ground is not the same for all trucks. If the fifth wheel doesn’t pick up the trailer, STOP! All trucks are not created equal. The fifth wheel should be at an angle facing the trailer. One rule of thumb that I use is, if the drive tires in your drivers side mirror are lined up with the edge of the trailer, your fifth wheel should be lined up with the kingpin. You may get away with it for a long time, but it will catch up to you. If you get in a hurry, get distracted, or just don’t care, you will have a problem someday. If you properly follow the procedure to hook up to a trailer, you can do it without incident time and time again. And there-in lies the problem: COMPLACENCY! Now, high hooking trailers is not such a hard thing to do. Once you learn how to do it, it becomes second nature. I have done it 1000’s of times in the 20 years I’ve been driving a truck. Hooking a trailer to a big truck is not hard to do. Since the fifth wheel pivots on a horizontal axis, the kingpin will hit the fifth wheel, slide across the top, and come to a rest in front of the fifth wheel. High hooking happens when the kingpin on the trailer is higher than the fifth wheel. You really have to be distracted or the set up of the trailer has to be really off. To be honest, high hooking a trailer is not easy to do. High Hooking A Trailer Is A Simple Mistake.
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