No brakes on trailer
Hey guys and gals. Picked up a new to us travel trailer and can't get brakes to work at all. Had to be extra careful towing it. Plugged in, truck shows "Trailer not connected. Check brake wiring." mes...
Forum Discussion
Gdetrailer wrote:cummins2014 wrote:
Could he just jack up one wheel, then pull the breakaway cable ,and see if locks up the tire, or do you have to establish it sliding the tires across the driveway , which doesn't sound like the best thing to do .
Yes.
As long as you don't mind jacking one wheel at a time, however, just because the one you picked works, doesn't necessarily mean the other three wheels are working.
That already HAS been mentioned in this thread.
Sliding the tires a couple of feet isn't going to hurt the tires, wheels, brakes or the trailer, but it does give you a real good indication of which brakes may or may not be in good working order all in one quick action..
Additionally, when hand turning a wheel and applying the breakaway, you only have a small amount of strength, far less than what your tow vehicle can apply.. It is possible to have the brakes strong enough to lock via hand but not be as strong as they should be, those brakes must be strong enough to stop and hold the entire trailers loaded weight.. Don't know about you, but myself, I don't think I would be able apply several thousand pounds of torque without resorting to a ten foot pole. Only pulling the trailer forwards or backwards will show just how good the brakes are working. In fact that IS one of the "tests" that my State Inspection mechanic does..
Do the divide and conquer troubleshooting correctly and you can easily bypass a lot of hard work (and guess work)in the process..
Let me rephrase a little bit here , I don't care what is going on with my brakes ,I am not going to pull the breakaway ,and drag my fifth wheel or trailer one inch across anything to see if the brakes are working ,its not SMART . Come on ,think about the stress on the axles ,springs ,tires etc. There are much better ways ,a drive test for one , to see how the brakes are working . Its been established there was no brakes for whatever reason. Now we know its a plug problem ,new plug ,fix old plug whatever ,take for a test drive see how the brakes feel ,and how they are stopping, not dragging tires across the driveway .
