Fifth Wheel mounting bolts

Jan 18, 2016 at 09:54 PM CST + 2
Posted by a private BulkLoads.com member.	Posted by a private BulkLoads.com member. Folks I have a truck in the shop that has a 3' sliding fifth wheel. The owner needs 12' of swing from the pin to the headache rack. I bought a similar 3' fifth wheel and made 1 with 2. The owner now has 6' of slider. My rant is this, while disassembling the unknown slider the mounting bolts that I took out were corroded almost in 2. While I realize that there are welds so that there is a redundancy of sorts this is something that most of us ignore. I pulled the bolts out of the original unit and found corrosion also, not as bad, but more than I wished to see. The bolts that mount the rails to the truck, no trouble it is the vertical bolts that hold the slider to the mounting rails. The newer designs have advantages over the older version of Holland products, but these bolts are of concern. The cost of replacement is minor. The labor an hour or less at any upstanding shop. If I knew how to post pictures to make my point clearer I would, but I don't. PLEASE check these bolts. Losing a trailer in traffic is something that has happened and the stories have been on this site. It CAN happen. I know that I'm an idiot, but this is something we will only address after the fact. Art Pfluger

Jan 18, 2016 at 09:54 PM CST

+ 2

Posted by a private BulkLoads.com member.

Folks I have a truck in the shop that has a 3' sliding fifth wheel. The owner needs 12' of swing from the pin to the headache rack. I bought a similar 3' fifth wheel and made 1 with 2. The owner now has 6' of slider. My rant is this, while disassembling the unknown slider the mounting bolts that I took out were corroded almost in 2. While I realize that there are welds so that there is a redundancy of sorts this is something that most of us ignore. I pulled the bolts out of the original unit and found corrosion also, not as bad, but more than I wished to see. The bolts that mount the rails to the truck, no trouble it is the vertical bolts that hold the slider to the mounting rails. The newer designs have advantages over the older version of Holland products, but these bolts are of concern. The cost of replacement is minor. The labor an hour or less at any upstanding shop. If I knew how to post pictures to make my point clearer I would, but I don't. PLEASE check these bolts. Losing a trailer in traffic is something that has happened and the stories have been on this site. It CAN happen. I know that I'm an idiot, but this is something we will only address after the fact.

Art Pfluger