Informal survey supp brakes
We are on an extended 3 month trip and I have decided to keep track of the percentage of class a toad haulers using supplemental breaking systems while walking the dogs in campgrounds. After a week it...
Forum Discussion
Hey Pops,
You don't have to ask me, or look - I'll tell you. I understand the word 'informal' (But as bad I am at spelling, I sometimes write it as 'informel' - hate to brake that here on this board, that I spel bad sometimes. Must mean I have nothing to contribute from years of other knawledge accumulation...:)!)
We do use a braking supplement in the toad. It's the USGear, as at the time I was shopping I felt it had the best combination of both ease of use (stays permanently mounted, and easy to activate while hooking up., as well as I liked the proportional application of braking based upon how hard of a stop the coach is doing. Panic stop, and the USGear brain detects this and applies more braking within the toad. The final feature I liked, was the cockpit ability to change the standard braking force, and also a lever to apply toad braking independent of the coach braking. The adjustment feature was important to me, as when we bought the unit we were in a T28 Bounder with the V10 F53 chassis, and I wanted as much braking assist as possible for going down steep hills, having the toad handling most of it's own braking. The lever to manually apply braking in the toad comes in real handy for when first starting out after hooking up the tow bar. We have the Stirling All Terrain tow bar, and making sure both arms 'lock' when first starting off is important. Especially when parked next to a curb on a street with a slight crown, and needing to cut out sharply to say get around a parked car in front of you. If the passenger side arm is not locked, the toad will drift to the right, and the front right tire can run along the curb based upon the back end of the coach swinging towards the curb as you cut the steering sharply. The DW used to sit in the toad, until we had both arms locked, and then if she had not been to mean to me during getting underway process, I'd stop and let her come back up and join me in the coach. It was about the 4th or 5th time that she did this, that I looked down and said 'Oh wait, I can apply drag/braking in the toad from within the driver's seat of the rig!'.
We now have a 40' with tag, so have Steer/Drive/Tag axle braking. Our little CRV is not all that heavy, and good 'chance' the coach braking would handle things OK. But, I like every bit of safety edge I can get in an emergency stopping situation, so really am glad I have the USGear in the coach. (We moved the cockpit control from the Bounder to the Country Coach, we liked it so much.)
Safety is safety, and as stated by others, it is the law in some states.
Best to all, be safe, have fun...
Smitty
(And I'm only kidding about the spelling. But if someone teased me about my spelling mistakes every time I posted, we'd crash the internet! These boards are bout info sharing - and the info gets across most of the time.)
You don't have to ask me, or look - I'll tell you. I understand the word 'informal' (But as bad I am at spelling, I sometimes write it as 'informel' - hate to brake that here on this board, that I spel bad sometimes. Must mean I have nothing to contribute from years of other knawledge accumulation...:)!)
We do use a braking supplement in the toad. It's the USGear, as at the time I was shopping I felt it had the best combination of both ease of use (stays permanently mounted, and easy to activate while hooking up., as well as I liked the proportional application of braking based upon how hard of a stop the coach is doing. Panic stop, and the USGear brain detects this and applies more braking within the toad. The final feature I liked, was the cockpit ability to change the standard braking force, and also a lever to apply toad braking independent of the coach braking. The adjustment feature was important to me, as when we bought the unit we were in a T28 Bounder with the V10 F53 chassis, and I wanted as much braking assist as possible for going down steep hills, having the toad handling most of it's own braking. The lever to manually apply braking in the toad comes in real handy for when first starting out after hooking up the tow bar. We have the Stirling All Terrain tow bar, and making sure both arms 'lock' when first starting off is important. Especially when parked next to a curb on a street with a slight crown, and needing to cut out sharply to say get around a parked car in front of you. If the passenger side arm is not locked, the toad will drift to the right, and the front right tire can run along the curb based upon the back end of the coach swinging towards the curb as you cut the steering sharply. The DW used to sit in the toad, until we had both arms locked, and then if she had not been to mean to me during getting underway process, I'd stop and let her come back up and join me in the coach. It was about the 4th or 5th time that she did this, that I looked down and said 'Oh wait, I can apply drag/braking in the toad from within the driver's seat of the rig!'.
We now have a 40' with tag, so have Steer/Drive/Tag axle braking. Our little CRV is not all that heavy, and good 'chance' the coach braking would handle things OK. But, I like every bit of safety edge I can get in an emergency stopping situation, so really am glad I have the USGear in the coach. (We moved the cockpit control from the Bounder to the Country Coach, we liked it so much.)
Safety is safety, and as stated by others, it is the law in some states.
Best to all, be safe, have fun...
Smitty
(And I'm only kidding about the spelling. But if someone teased me about my spelling mistakes every time I posted, we'd crash the internet! These boards are bout info sharing - and the info gets across most of the time.)
