another brake question

[robkathybat]

It appears my trailer brakes are not getting the voltage to make them work correctly. We have not been able to camp much this year and wen we have gone out its less ten 100 miles, but this trip I noticed that I had to push harder on the brake pedal to come to a stop, so I tried the manual activation and there is barely a tug from the trailer. after we parked I made sure the wheels were off the ground and I pulled the breakaway switch and all 4 tires locked up, so I measured the brake voltage from the 7 pin connector. With the gain set at 10 I get a little less then 1 volt at the 7 pin. The fuse (position F11 on my Ram) checked out fine. When I checked the voltage at the fuse I only got 2 volts. I hope someone can help with this, it appears somewhere in my Rams brake controller there is something screwed up. Thanks for your help.

[XCMARK]

our trailer had 7000 lb axles, I can honestly say those drum brakes would scare me in heavy traffic. The truck would do 60~70% of the stopping. I had pulled the trailer drums off cleaned the oil off the shoes (previous owner over greased the wheel bearing MANY times). Put everything back together and desided it was time to upgrade to disk brakes and Morryde IS. By far the best upgrade you can do to heavy trailer is disk brakes and IS. It stops as good as the truck empty and goes over bridges very smoothly. I would say its time to pull a drum and see if they have grease on the shoes, if it does just trash the shoes , you really can't get the oil out of the friction material. Try a pull test, disconnect the 7 way plug from the truck and pull your emergency break away cord. If the truck can pull the trailer easy its the shoes and drums at fault. DONT leave the breakaway active for long you can cause the magnets to get VERY hot and smoke! If the truck can't pull it, then it's the wires or brake controller's fault.

As for the truck end , you should have a 30 amp + fuse feeding the controller under the hood . you may need to have the trailer plugged in to measure the voltage (two person job).

[travelin' texans]

To start I'd pull the drums & see how many are full of grease.
Personally I would NOT & recommend to others DO NOT use the EZLube zerks to grease bearings, remove, inspect & handpack ONLY at whatever interval works for you.

[mhs4771]

Don't know about your Ram, but with the newer GMs the IBC will not provide any voltage to the brakes when not moving, and it seems the faster you're going the more brake force is applied.

[Ford truck guy]

I agree with grease on the drums.... check those 1st, and like Michelle stated, the voltage will be low when not rolling ( at least on newer vehicles) .

When I pulled my BRAND NEW brake system off to replace with disc's, 3 of the 4 were coated with grease from failed seals, or OVER pumping.

[RWRODRIGO@HOTMAIL.COM]

Save up and convert to hydraulic disc brakes. You won’t regret it. I can stop the whole rig with the trailer brakes alone if I had to. No more white knuckle stops.

[Langenhammer]

Amen to the disc brake conversion, I did mine last year, and wow what a difference! I live in the Phoenix area and we go up into the mountains for camping trips as often as we can and I have much more faith in the brakes than I used to. You won't regret it. I bought the Kodiak brake kit, and installed hard lines from the brake master cylinder unit back to the calipers and it's awesome!