Coupling and Uncoupling Tutorial

right now I'm going to demonstrate how to do a coupling and uncoupling we're going to start with the uncoupling of the tractor and the trailer first thing that you have to do for uncoupling is you have to ensure that the ground around your landing gear is going to be able to support the weight of the trailer once you disconnect from the trailer once you know that the ground will handle the weight of the trailer we're going to Jack the gear down the gearing systems on these trailers all vary sometimes the handles on the driver's side sometimes it's on the passenger side sometimes you turn it clockwise sometimes counterclockwise sometimes you have to push it all the way in to get high gear sometimes you have to pull it all the way out to get high gear so you'll just have to learn your own variation of it we always want to maintain control of the handle we don't want to just try to spin the handle with our fingers otherwise that hand will come around and hit you in the mouth and damage your teeth we bring it down until it just touches the ground and then I'm going to back it up one third and then we store our handle back where it belongs we want the gear to float the legs to float just a little bit and the reason we want that to happen is so that when we separate the tractor and the trailer we can actually fill the trailer and watch the trailer settle and then we know that we're separated from it we need to disconnect our airlines and our electrical lines before we pull our airlines apart we'll check inside the truck and make sure that the brake buttons are both pulled indicating that the brakes are set anytime we get in and out of the truck we always want to face to the inside and we want to have a three position hold either two hands and a foot or two feet in one hand keep us from falling we come back to the airlines just push the airline straight up and separate these lines add the electric by grabbing it on the wings and pulling it straight up then we want to take these airlines and we want to store the air in the electric lines so that they are safe they're not going to drag on the ground they're not going to get caught up inside of our driveshaft or get up in with the tires will store that one in the dummy head or the glad-hand head and handle and that will lay the other one up so it's not dragging on the ground once we have the gladhands and electrical line stored the next thing that we want to do is we want to get up underneath here we want to pull the release handle so we pull our release handle and we lift it up and lock it in place and then we have to walk up to the cab of the truck if the truck is running we shut the truck off we take the keys out that way there's zero chance that somebody can get in the truck and move the truck while you're underneath it at this point in time we would go up underneath the truck and we would check it make sure that the locking jaw has been unlocked by the release handle and the locking jaw will retract off of the kingpin as we pull the tractor out from under the trailer so just a real quick recap of what happened we disconnected all of our lines and stowed those out of the way so that we don't run over them and tear them up we have disconnected or we pulled our release handle and locked it into place so it's in the release we checked our locking jaws to make sure that the locking jaw locking lever has been retracted our landing gear is down not completely against the ground it's floating just a little bit and the handle is stored now we're ready to start the truck and pull up out from underneath the trailer when we do start the truck and pull forward we're not going to use the red brake button because we do not have an airline connected between the tractor and the trailer all we would do is bleed the air out into the atmosphere now that I'm ready to go ahead and pull out from underneath the trailer I'm going to put the truck in gear release only the yellow parking brake button I'm going to ease my clutch out nice and slow and I'm going to watch for my trailer to settle when my trailer settles I stop put the truck in neutral reapply the brakes shut the truck off three-point and exit from the vehicle and then I can come back and I can check to make sure that my landing gear is supporting the trailer if it's tight as doing what it's supposed to do I always want to try to live my fifth wheel skid plate up underneath my apron just a little bit that way if the landing gear has an issue all I have to do is back right back up underneath the trailer and lock it in and I can pull it to the shop and get it trick now we're going to go ahead and read couple the tractor to the trailer first thing that we want to check is a make sure that the tractor is lined up properly with the trailer the best way to do that is use the straight edge of the trailer and compare the distance between the edge of the trailer and the edge of the tires on the tractor and you got to do both sides when we do back the tractor up we only want to back the tractor up until the trailer hits about on the halfway point of the fifth wheel quit the apron if it hits any farther than halfway up the skid plate when the skid plate lays down there's going to be a gap between the apron and the skid plate and this is another reason why we put the gear we leave the gear up a tiny bit the legs we leave it up a little bit when we drop the trailer so that whenever we do back up it'll raise the trailer a little we can fill the back end of the tractor squat down also as the trailer raises a little bit it takes the pressure off of the legs that way if you're not perfectly centered between the capture zone on the fifth wheel and the kingpin and the trailer has to move left or right it's not going to create a bind on the landing gear which is going to be very hard to Jack the landing gear up I'm going to go ahead and back the tractor up until the apron touches on the skid plate and then I'm going to stop I'm going to get out and I'm going to check the skid plate we always do a three-point entry into the truck so that we're safe and anytime we start our truck we do a safe start we make sure that the trucks in neutral the brakes are applied push the clutch to the floor and then we start the truck up we only use the tractor break button we leave the trailer break out because we are not attached to the trailer itself as we back up we got to use both mirrors left that right now we try to get the tractors even as possible up under the trailer now I'm going to stop up and get out and check and see exactly where it hit as I stated before I backed up we wanted to hit prior to the pivot pin or at the pivot pit so we're good I already have the trailer off the ground slightly so that my landing gear is loose now I can go ahead and check my kingpin truck is running I can't go under the trailer I can squat next to it and make sure that my kingpin is going to come up inside the capture zone now I'm going to back up I'm going to lock the locking jaw around the kingpin and then I'm going to give the tractor a little I'm going to put it in a forward gear and I'm going to give it a little tug on the trailer to make sure that the locking jaw is wrapped around the kingpin and locked in place if the locking jaw is not locked properly you'll pull out from underneath the trailer this is exactly why we do not hook up our airlines prior to backing up if the trailer is older than 1974 it won't have dual brake chambers on it which means there's no emergency brakes and you'll have to hook up the airline and supply air to the trailer so that it can set the emergency brakes this trailer has dual chamber so we have emergency brake three-point entry into the truck again put my truck reverse release the parking brake on the tractor and back up real gentle until we hear the locking jaw lock we're going to put our truck in gear forward gear now we're going to tug on the trailer a couple of times to make sure that we're locked it then we'll apply the brakes and shut the truck off take the keys with us because now what we have to do is check the locking jaw and make sure that it was that it's properly wrapped around the kingpin where it's supposed to be and for this you need some kind of light and we can see that the locking jaw is held in place now I'm ready to hook up my Airlines and my electrical will we hook up our Airlines we'll check our sails and we'll make sure that our gladhands are free of debris the handle of the glad-hand goes in an upward position with the seals matched up one seal on top of the other and then we rotate the handle around and we lock it down in place we do the same thing with the red blat head match up the seals rotate it around and lock it down and then we're going to do the same thing with our electrical I'm going to check inside the electrical the connection box and the cord itself going to line up the tabs push it in make sure the tabs over locking it locks itself in the next thing that we want to do is go ahead and start the truck back up three-point entry getting into the truck clutches it or trucks in neutral brakes are set clutch goes to the floor start the truck up he's the clutch out pushing the trailer brakes apply button leave the tractor brake set we can come back and check for leaks going to listen to it I will feel and make sure that it's not leaking at this point in time we can start pre tripping our trailer top the bottom front the back side to side and the whole undercarriage of it as we work our way back free tripping get back here to our landing gear we're going to Jack the gear all the way up now we're going to store our handle as we continued our pre trip we would make it all the way back to where our Airlines and our brakes are and we could also listen for air leaks back here alright this concludes our drop and hook

Channel: J-Tech

Views: 1,050,733

Rating: 4.8506131 out of 5

Keywords: CDL, Truck Driver (Profession), Tutorial, J-Tech, Jones Technical Institute, Commercial Truck Driving, Jacksonville (City/Town/Village), Coupling, Uncoupling, Tractor Trailer, Semi, Commercial Drivers License, Class-A, How-to (Website Category), Instructor, Compass Rose Foundation

Id: VPJ1biinnx8

Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 15 2015