This story begins while i offered to haul my friend's Aerostar van for my boy. He lives first in the a very steep gravel hill.
We drove the van in the trailer, strapped it down tight, set the burden distributing hitch but i headed down the hill. It is all going well until I hit the brakes.
Basically there were none. Only the fronts at the Suburban were locking. I pushed the big red button on my hand-crafted trailer brake controller offering them the complete 13.7 volts but nothing. Well next to nothing. I d been still happening way faster than I really wanted to!
The trailer brakes require to have locked up solid when the red button is pushed making everything at least slide straight - instead of the trailer attempting to pass the Suburban. Mention about the cart prior to a horse!
The way the load was pushing around that Suburban, I was really glad I actually had not attempted to tow by using little Jeep Cherokee.
Once that job was done I backed the trailer on the shop to trust my first check out those trailer brakes. I have owned this trailer for nearly twenty-five a few years I have never ever seen stored by the brake drums for it. I reckon it was obviously about time.
My inspection of the very first drum showed me a touch about how electric trailer brakes work. There's an electromagnet that pulls on the across the drum. The friction of a typical magnet the actual drum moves one shoe that in turn moves another shoe with a cam action.
Pretty simple. However i didn't see anything wrong. The shoes looked fine, the drum was fine except some scoring wherein the magnet rubbed. I loaded power to the magnet it also seem to pull OK. But, the friction of many magnet against the drum was obviously not sufficient enough to perform the shoes.
Which i could not determine the way magnet could go bad, but that is what it seemed. Time for some Internet research.
I finally found a service accordingly magnet failure was common on electric trailer brakes. And so i went searching for trailer brake magnets. Most places wanted more for the magnet than I really could buy the whole backing assembly for. For getting one on a local parts store I would be required to pay greater than I possibly could buy two backing assemblies for. And new magnets belong to the backing plate assemblies.
Just when I was about to renounce inquire about new assemblies, I began to use Auto Safety House. Might also use some work towards their web site, however have cheap prices.
I found a pair of new drums on e bay but i was the only one who bid and so i got both for the value of the. Then the wait for Danny - my UPS driver - to bring them to me. Naturally the drums and magnets arrived on different days so he attained visit having dog Smash twice.
Upon closer inspection of the trailer brakes, I have found which i still have not learn how they worked. Something just hasn't look right about the way the cams worked. It sure looked like they will not be stronger in reverse. And such trailer has always been challenging to duplicate in the event the brakes are performing right.
An immediate focus on the Dexter Brakes blog confirmed my suspicions. The rear axle on our trailer was installed backwards.
I made a decision the bearings did not really care on condition that they were spinning backwards, so I elected to merely swap the brake assemblies left to right.
Having them off made installing the magnets and routing the not exactly little green wires somewhat easier. I found that many lubricant made getting them from the grommets a lot easier.
Dexter Magnets are identified from the wire color. The correct one for my 3500lb axles will be the green wire. Nice they haven t changed that in 25 years.
The magnets are held in by spring clips which are really difficult to get off. I used a screwdriver as well as a pry bar and bent them slightly to get them off. The brand new magnets came with new clips anyway.
I loaded the brand new bearings with axle grease and installed the brand new brake drums. They are not Dexter brand still the fit alright.
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The wiring is was pretty electric trailer brakes simple to reconnect since there is no polarity at the magnets. Just connect one wire to your brake controller power lead and one to ground. Dexter recommends powered by separate ground wire however i just grounded them the trailer frame like it was electric trailer brakes done before.
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