noteven

That rig up turned out really nice.

The only times I ever come close to doing damage “blind hitching” is when I have unfamiliar bystanders “helping” .

Hi Allen, That's a nice looking truck. Those look like 22.5 tires on 10 bolt hub piloted wheels. Spare tire and wheel - you may find it is simpler to carry an air line to air a leaking tire and a good quality tire plugging kit. Not aged out and rotten 22.5 truck tires seldom blow to pieces on a RV hauler application. They are loaded lightly and they are pretty rugged. No harm in setting up a spare. You will need the capability to run 450lbs-ft wheel nuts off and on, retorque them (especially on aluminum wheels) and a place to carry the spare and handle it on and off if you need it. A new steel wheel is cheep. It looks like your truck has some custom not usually seen in commercial work wheels on the front. Coach - net is one company that offers roadside coverage for class 7 and 8 truck drawn RV rigs. Oh - if you are not familiar with how an Allison transmission functions in a truck, do some coffee time research. Your 4000 series trans is not a GM pickup. Allison's website and dealers can be a wealth of maintenance and programming information.

Around the farm n' ranch we generally announce in a loud voice to no one in particular: "Them king pin 5th wheel hitches is never gonna catch on!" on our 5th or 9th trip out of the seat to look see if the ball is lined up this time... You also announce it while cranking landing gear up and down to unhitch and hitch to those damn fool goose neck balls buried below a flat deck.

I also run less pounds of air in my tires so they aren't so heavy.

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Darryl - send rain or snow to us here in Flyover County ( AB east side, 6 hours north of Montana, 8 hours from GP) we is dry. I'm leaving stuff outside to get rained on that didn't work, washed the truck fleet that didn't work... -4C here tonight. Next will be throw the tent and camp stuff on a motorcycle and head down to the river pasture and pretend to be on a trip - that ought to bring on a wet snow... Over

Here's one for you guys and gals - back in the late 2000's early teens we had Cummins ISX 15l engines coming in with cracked EGR coolers - the cause was determined to be cavitation of the coolant causing the material of the cooler to run at exhaust gas temperature momentarily vs coolant temperature. The cavitation could only occur due to low cooling system pressure. The prevention was to maintain a properly functioning radiator cap. Now these engines were normally in tractors hauling 63.5 tonne (140,000lbs) GCW 8 axles so throttle is on the rug a lot. No idea if this would ever be a trouble in RV haulin' work but if the rad cap had a million miles on it I would freshen it up.

Rotorhead - Sometimes trucks coming off large private carrier fleets can be a good buy. A private carrier is a trucking company owned by the company they haul for (like Walmart, Dillard's, etc) If they are selling their own trucks that can be even better because you can talk to the fleet maintenance people about the specific maintenance and repairs various trucks have had. I don't know what applies statewise or federally in the USA - but in Canada a commercial vehicle has to have a mechanical fitness inspection certificate every 6 to 12 months. It is commonly called the "safety" inspection. Anyways - I always advise anyone who asks to have a comprehensive inspection done on a truck you are interested in buying at your expense. This includes a mechanical fitness and also all fluids sampled. It can be the cheapest few hundred $$ you spend. This should be done by a certified facility... Pretend you are buying a used helicopter.

I mentioned there is a junction box. I removed both ends of the brown wire circuit from the stud in the junction box. I tested the cord to vehicle side. Good. I tested the chassis side. Short to frame. The wiring except for brakes is all enclosed inside the trailer. I removed the led tail light unit. I disconnect the wire from the light. I tested the isolated wire. Short to frame. I removed upper interior trim panels from back to front, inspecting. 3rd panel off I found the oops. Fix: The wiring in this trailer is all supported by attached zip ties and run through grommets. Replacing it would be a bit of an involved job. There is also not enough slack at the spot to cut out and a splice... The wire was not bared. There was a tiny spot that was shorting, hardly visible to the eyes. Bare aluminum is a pretty good conductor. Anyways I freed the wire and tested - bending, wiggling, shaking - and decided the wire is not broken inside so I installed the ground screw and insulated the brown wire and laid it back loose where it was. Reinstalled the interior trim panels. Lights worked fine on a 30 mile drive on rough roads. The brown wire resting on the frame is not visible by anyone less that 6' tall standing on the floor... so if you were adding that white ground and reached up and run the screw in you may not see the interference... So be sure of your target when you are driving the self tapping screws ... Thanks to everyone for input and ideas.

The previous owner had a couple additional light fixtures installed. The brown wire smashed under the new ground wire is the short circuit.

What Darryl said ^

I wasn't clear Rick - the frame holes are laid out in mm on center, as well as being drilled in mm dimensions. If you want to extend your frame with a couple chunks to support the hitch the Kenworth Body Builder Manual on the KW website has the correct procedure for preparing the splice and welding. It is 120,000psi heat treated material in whatever dimensions you measure. You can sometimes find frame pieces at up fitters - customers often buy a stock straight trucks and the up fitter cuts off frame to suit the body. Those 3 piece cross members are appreciated if you have to change one where you can't just slide it out the back... but they aren't "the cheapest" way to build

Rick - a KW will have 16mm frame bolts in 17mm holes to allow the frame to have the flexibilities. The frame is drilled on mm dimensions.

So, like, at my summer base I have cell tower hotspot that is tied to this "home tower". 500 gig is CAD$80 / month which would be around USD$67 / month Speed just now is - hold onto your Stetson - 15.08 Mbps down 13.41 Mbps up ping 44 ms Are you saying Starlink may be faster 🤣

If you want to really be annoyed go inta your local truck dealer / parts supplier and look at the brush tools that completely clean and shine up both of the connectors on a "normal" truck to trailer plug (i.e. "commercial" plug) vs the dumb stupid flat bladed son of a 7 way RV world everything has to be different plugs...

Ok - take a scout around the Hendrickson website .... But first I forgot to ask if you have the owner manual for the truck and if yes if you looked at the maintenance schedules in there?

Robert I think you are on the right track reinforcing the side plates. We used to call that "oilpatch engineering" - you build it so until someone winches on it with a bed truck AND two 7's and busts it then you make it heavier... cue the safety monitors....

Ok - fused jumper wire built. Battery drug over to the patient. Installed 15 amp fuse and connected battery - to 7 way - , battery + to fused jumper. Connect left turn brake. Bright light - OK Connect running lights. All illuminate - OK Connect 12v Aux - all interior lights and rear loading lights illuminate. OK Connect offending right turn / brake circuit - BZZZZZZZZZZZZZT sparks poof goes the 15 amp fuse. Dead short. All diodes in the right lamp illuminate when running lights are powered. I am thinking lamp is ok but I will get a look at the back of it tomorrow. So it is 28C / 82F here right now and the trailer is sitting in the western sun with not one bit of shade so it's a bit warmer inside for a not quite unwinterized Albertan right now - never fear it is going down to -5C Weds night - so looking for the short begins in the cool of the morning. I can isolate the cord at the junction box inside to test it. Then I can remove 3 or 4 panels to expose the circuit on it's way to the tail light.

Yes agree with Ray about grounds. The truck deck itself connects via a 4-way flat trailer connector for quick disconnect for service - 6 bolts and the flat 4 and 4 people or a hoist can lift the deck off the truck to access fuel tank and chassis components. The flat 4 is wired into a Phillips junction box because the first body was uninstalled by cutting the Ford harness. Because 1st body up fitter was too stupid to use Ford up fitter harness / weatherpak kit supplied with the truck... but I digress. This wiring work on my deck was done carefully while using Ford wire diagram for the truck etc. The only tape is around the flat 4. The installation has been flawless until the test plug in to this trailer. It is working flawlessly since once 1st post fuse was replaced. The momentary weird light display was like there was stray voltage escaping for a couple seconds. I rounded up supplies to make a fused jumper wire set to test with battery power rather than risking a truck... The Legend trailer has a molded to the cord really nice 7-way plug. It is run up into the interior of the V-nose into a Phillips junction box. Wire runs take off from there along the top of the wall frames to the rear. I see I can remove the aluminum interior wall to ceiling 45 degree angled panels along the walls to access all the wiring. So getting eyes on wires is possible except where the drop about 3ft down the rear corners to the light fixtures. I will report findings of live wire testing.... Thanks for ideas and help so far. I know a guy should just "get bizzy and fix it" but hopefully these trouble shooting posts can assist others sometime.

bigred - you don't say what make and model your steer axle is but this is a link to the service manual for Eaton 12000lbs wide track steer axles. Appendix page 45 has the lubrication interval chart: Eaton 12000lbs steer axle maintenance manual

If I am on a tangent to proactively pre-replace parts on my Kenworth, I only buy parts from my Kenworth dealer. Whatever has been vetted through Paccar Parts seems to fit and work and has a warranty at 100's of Kenworth and Peterbilt dealers continent wide. It could be just me but I have had issues with the quality of replacement parts from the automotive aftermarket on a couple light duty vehicles. And the aftermarket is not afraid to charge for stuff...

If I may be permitted a dumb question (my speciality ) How does a company get away with selling new equipment with "no warranty?" I know the RV world specializes in "useless warranty" (sir we are booking for 123 weeks from now...) but no warranty seems unusual...

Thanks for the link - I think I will pick one up - I posted the nature of the problem in the Technical Tips section - turn signal mystery.

I have a used Legend cargo trailer that is new to the fleet. I plugged 7 way into my camper truck - 2012 F350 with flatbed. Flatbed has LED lights, trailer has LED lights. Right side turn signal no worky on trailer, all other lights fine. Right turn on flatbed headache rack working, but not the skirt right turn. Then all lights on flatbed quit. Lights on cab working, did not quit. Immediately disconnected trailer.... No low amp fuses in passenger kick panel box blown. 30amp "trailer" fuse in high power fuse/relay box under the hood blown. Replaced. All lights on the truck now work properly. The truck powers 2 other trailers and a slide in truck camper properly. There is no emergency battery connected on the trailer at the moment. I did a continuity check on the trailer turn signal circuits at the 7 way plug and found: Left turn signal/brake lamp (that was working) 3 ohms. Right turn signal/brake lamp (that was not working) open circuit. I am chicken to plug the truck into this trailer due to might not get so lucky with a $4 dollar fuse next time.... What do you electrical experts think?