10-4 Magazine October 2023

56 10-4 Magazine / October 2023 truck, pressure washed it, and gave it a good visual inspection. There weren’t any signs of wear, but I did find a stone lodged in the back side of the jaws. It had gotten stuck in some old dried up grease and was preventing the adjustment wedge from fully locking. This turned out to be a cheap fix. I disassembled the adjustment mechanism. This sounds complicated, but it’s not so much – it’s a single shoulder bolt with a spring that pushes a wedge into the jaws. Total cost to repair was 40 cents (that was the cost of a new locking nut). If you’re capable of adjusting the brakes on your tractor, then you should be able to adjust the jaws on your fifth wheel. Our faithful readers will know I always recommend doing a Google search online for specific instructions on your unit. Once you know the make and the model you can get the proper adjustment sequence. In most cases, this can be done with hand tools. If your tools don’t go big enough, head to Harbor Freight for some bigger sockets. Note to self: tools in your toolbox are never wasted money. They don’t have to be fancy or high impact since they aren’t a torqued spec, but it is important that you keep every aspect of your unit in adjustment and working properly. I realize many of our readers don’t do their own work, so when your truck is already in the shop for routine repairs, ask the technician to remove and clean the fifth wheel head and replace the pivot bushing and pins, if needed. This may cost you a couple hours of labor and maybe $100 in parts, but the peace of mind will be well worth the price (trust me). I have run a little long this month, but with winter coming on, I plan to be prepared for the worst conditions Mother Nature can throw at us. With proper planning and some sound maintenance practices I hope to have much fewer mechanical troubles this winter. I would love to leave the old “Just Steppin” truck locked in the shop until spring, but my banker doesn’t recommend or support that idea. If you will excuse me, I need to go ask my wife for some extra money to take a happy hooker-upper out for a date to the truck wash. Where did you think we would go? The two of us have a big day planned for tomorrow, as we are hooking up with the “tag along” trailer. There’s iron in the mills and we are haulin’ it to the hills, so get off the corner and hit the street, because it’s time to rock and roll, 10-4. n