the reason i bring this up is that i've worked with a lot of truck drivers, and watched drivers of 30 years experience take 45 minutes to hook their truck up on what seemed level ground, it was even paved. the air dump weren't enough to level the truck and he had to use ply wood, which took extremely long. it seems if you could manipulate the fifth wheel more you could save more time on uneven surfaces

Don't know what their problem was. If the ground was relatively level, a newbie should be able to "hit the pin" in one or two tries.

Interesting thought process, though. And like others, I applaud your trying to think outside the box. However, it seems that the parts needed for your solution would be scrunched into a small space, and possibly not tough enough for the job.

How about this? Not having given much thought to this.... you currently have a function that raises or lowers your "drive" suspension. How hard would it be to make that operation an "independant" one for each END of the axle? i.e. would it be easier to modify the drive suspensions to be able to lower just ONE side instead of the whole thing at once? Drop just ONE side of the suspension at a time, and to "intermittent" levels instead of just UP or DOWN. This would allow you to level the fifth wheel plate, (to that of the trailer platform,) without all the additional parts and problems of fifth wheel "levelers."

Besides, I don't know about "plywood" but I carry 2X4's and 4X8's to "step up" my drives when needed to reach a "high" trailer. If I used them on just ONE side of the drives, I've accomplished the same thing.

If you want to make my life easier, invent a small motor that raises and lowers the landing gear for me! :lol:

Good luck. And if you get rich.... remember how nice I was to ya!! :lol:

I second GH's motion

If you want to make my life easier, invent a small motor that raises and lowers the landing gear for me!

conway truckload has them on some of their trailers (the ones that have the air skirts) it uses air to do it and the controls are behind the little door ware the crank for the landing gear should be.

as for me i just wish WABASH was still putting backup lites on their trailers. nothing like having backup lites on the trailer when backing at nite

Nothing except maybe, 4 way flashers... which is the universal method of indicating that you might be backing up. :roll:

i always use my 4-ways but i like it when i have one of our older trailers that have the backup lites on them. it is nice to have backup lites when backing at nite