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Finally Did it! Dropped Fiver!


Dennis M

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At every shop I managed when a driver dropped a trailer he would blame it on a faulty 5th wheel.  I had to demonstrate to the trans manager how a 5th wheel that was FULLY locked could not fail.  The Holland 5th wheel had the horse shoe "That's what we called it" that would slide next to the jaws to keep from opening until the release was pulled.  The Fontaine had the bar that would slide behind the pin.  Both if jaws were around the pin and the release handle was in the locked position could not release the pin unless released by pulling the handle.  I still had to go through the formalities of inspecting the 5th wheel each time a trailer was dropped.

"It is better to have more truck than you need than to need more truck than you have"

2001 Volvo 660, Cummins 400 ISX, Eaton 3 Peddle Auto Shift    
2014 Fuzion 40' Toyhauler
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On 9/7/2018 at 1:32 AM, Waterjosh said:

This is what scares me to death being new to towing a 5'er with a brand new truck to boot, y'all are gonna give me nightmares... I have a Superglide hitch so can't even think of a way to rig a catch on that

"New to towing....brand new truck" - assume truck is a LDT  ('LGT "- p/up)   may not be a "regular" visitor to the HDT forum - so PM sent.

Blue Ox Bedsaver for PR Superglide hitch = BXR4506

Might not be able to use with tailgate in place. (?)

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Actually when I originally responded I had seen it in the hot topics thing on the right in the forum.  I have towed plenty in the past, just never a fiver, and yes, it's a p/u, Ram 2500.  I had never heard of a tug test before starting research on 5'ers and definitely do it now.  Planning our 2nd trip out in it for Sunday - Wednesday of next week, gotta get the kiddo started early, and at 1 year old he likes it so far.  Hope y'all don't kick me outa your forum, I am always open to info no matter the source.

Thanks

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I did a tug test in in a campground when the pin popped out of the hitch and dropped onto the deck. There was no damage and would have gotten away with no one in the campground noticing except for the blood curdling scream from the DW who was supervising the operation!

2004 Freightliner m2 106  2015 DRV lx450 Fullhouse  2019 Indian Springfield 2014 Yamaha 950 V-Star

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Had a chance couple of weeks ago to completely take apart an ET and  a Binkley head, approximately 5 years old.

Normally  a couple hours event took most of the day, torch, DW40, 20 pound 4 foot handle sledge hammer, its 2 foot smaller brother, sacrificial smack shaft, to "encourage" the hitch shafts to move,

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and various other tools were necessary. The current truck owner did not know where that truck previously "resided", I would guess on the Pacific Coast or in the campground in the vicinity of California Salton sea. The shafts have specialized coating that is highly resistant things in the atmosphere including salt, but I have never seen such pitting including inside the pivot tubes where shafts typically never see anything.

All were replaced on account of that but also because the ends were "mushroomed" with all that beating and smacking and would not fit back in their mounting saddles.

This was my second "bite" with this hitch, several months back the new owner called me about the problem he had with hitching up. I visited him (he lives about an hour away from my house) and I quickly established that the Binkley head was pretty much frozen in place, one jaw did not want to rotate at all and the other could be barely moved with quite a bit of force. The latching block would not go in between the jaws to latch with the force of its spring, but could be "persuaded" to do so with a hammer. With a liberal soaking with DW40 and lot of smacking things back and forth I was able to make the Binkley serviceable to a point that he could use the truck for RVing for few months. We had an understanding that this was temporary at best and couple of weeks ago he brought the truck in to do the "right thing".

The reason I am posting this under this thread is the picture below.

oLWwhIcl.jpg

Here are the critical parts that came out of that Binkley  head. The pins were solidly rusted inside the jaws and those assemblies were rusted to the head, they needed to be sledged out to take them apart. Binkley does nothing when they put them together (dry fit). When I put them together I literally slather everything with an anti seize compound. I ground off most of the rust on one of the pin, but you can see by comparison how much rust is on the "untouched one"

So if your Binkley is 10 years old and you got 100K miles on it, you have a "friend" 

 

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