After learning about the unique pain-points customers experience in warehouse distribution, port, and rail applications with competitors' yard truck fifth wheels, Fontaine focused its resources on developing its Fontaine Armor. Launched in September 2015 after three years of research, engineering, and field testing, Armor is the only fifth wheel built specifically for the yard truck market, according to Fontaine.
“We achieve more uptime for our customers and reduce maintenance costs by making wear parts (including the locking jaw/mechanism) removable and replaceable while the fifth wheel is still on the truck," explains Fontaine’s director of advanced product development, Madhu Madheswaran.
The newly patented system utilizes armor grade steel wear plates that can be removed to gain access to the wear components. In addition, Fontaine said it helps take the "guess work" out of the rebuild process by incorporating a wear groove in the jaw for quick and easy visual guidance.
Another design feature is that there are no protruding items extending around the top plate casting. This helps prevent the typical damage caused by misaligned kingpins in yard truck applications, according to the company.
“All put together we believe we have built a heavy duty fifth wheel solution that will truly benefit yard truck customers,” Madheswaran concluded.
The Fontaine Armor is currently available at all major yard truck OEMs: Ottawa, TICO, Capacity, and Autocar. It is also available as a direct retrofit onto existing Holland FW35 yard truck fifth wheel brackets. For more information, call (844) 310-4156.