Truck tow setting

Had the truck repaired. The shimmy in the left front turned out to be a night mare due to excessive rust from not using the truck and the salt used in the East I was told. Rear shoes. Front: much due to rust and breakage from rust. Replaced calipers, shoes, bearings leaking ground rotors and some other minor stuff. $3100.

Cast holes, drilled holes, slots, dimples...etc are mainly for aggressive
braking where the friction material gets hot enough to out-gas

All friction material out-gas at their upper temp range

The out-gas pressure is high enough to lift the friction material off
the cast iron rotor/drum surface and is part of 'fade'

Holes...cast and drilled removes a lot of material both the heat sink
(absorption and thermal path) and drilled holes has a high chance of
cracking from the stress raisers created during the drilling process.
Whatever 'cooling' their marketing brochures says is kinds-sorta true,
but they have to be spinning much faster than our truck's spin at.
Typical 2 seater tires are in the 21" to 24" dia range...

I've gone back to plain HD rotors after having expensive slotted cryo
rotors that were supposed to alleviate the heat stress cracks found
on my Suburban OEM rotors. Since the slotted cryo rotors also heat
stress cracked...not worth the money for no gain

Best to look for a gas slot on the friction material. Used to be only
on performance level pads, but am now seeing them on standard/OEM pads

The better braking is most likely from the higher level performance
pads than anything else

IMHO, trailer brakes should be able to skid the tires at any speed and
note that trailer OEMs are notorious for El Cheapo axles/brakes/etc

Hank85713 wrote:
I have an 04 F350 and I also feel the brakes were weak at best. I just changed the fronts to dimpled and slotted rotors with semi metalic pads. I havent towed with them yet but they did make a significant change to braking action.

There is someone around one of these sites that says the dimples and slots are not needed, I dont know for sure but I do say the braking action is better. My son put them his F150 at all 4 corners and really likes them much better and he no longer has the nasty brake dust on his wheels or scored rotors to look at. The set for the fronts was about $275 or so form one of the online business.

trail-explorer wrote:

joelc wrote:
I was having breaking problems

What is it that's breaking that requires getting work done to the truck?

joelc, you are habitually misspelling BRAKE, hence the good-natured ribbing.

I have an 04 F350 and I also feel the brakes were weak at best. I just changed the fronts to dimpled and slotted rotors with semi metalic pads. I havent towed with them yet but they did make a significant change to braking action.

There is someone around one of these sites that says the dimples and slots are not needed, I dont know for sure but I do say the braking action is better. My son put them his F150 at all 4 corners and really likes them much better and he no longer has the nasty brake dust on his wheels or scored rotors to look at. The set for the fronts was about $275 or so form one of the online business.

joelc wrote:
I was having breaking problems

What is it that's breaking that requires getting work done to the truck?

As far as the setting on your brake controller goes, there should be a calibration procedure in the owner's manual to get you in the ballpark, then you can fine tune the settings to fit your own personal tastes and expectations.

There is no one right number setting on the brake controller.

If the brake controller is maxxed out, though, and you still don't feel you have enough braking action from the trailer, you have a problem that needs to be addressed.

NEVER trust that someone has "checked" your brakes, because 99 times out of 100 that means a visual inspection. They looked at your tires, and maybe glanced underneath the trailer to see if anything was falling off.

Thanks much. As soon as we get done with this trip and I can get the wife out of the RV for a bit, I can bring in the slides and check everything out.

Thanks all for your help.

My Dexter brakes have two plugs in the 6oclock position on the backing plate. There's a star wheel behind one of them (which one depends on which side of the axle faces forward).
I suggest that if you are adjusting your brakes you also check your wheel bearings. At least check the end play if you aren't going to remove the drums to check the races. I found that mine were getting quite a bit of play in them, enough that one of the grease seals had failed, filling the brake drum and shoes with grease and ruining the shoes. The bearings were fine, but if you are slinging grease into the brakes no amount of adjustment is going to give you the braking power you need, and greasy brake shoes also tend to stick.

If you gone through more than one brake adjustment without pulling the drums, I suggest pulling the drums and checking the magnets, which also wear. The magnet is what actuates the brakes, by pulling itself against the rotating brake drum and pushing the shoes outward through a lever and cam. So, it has friction material on it too. I was really surprised at how much brake dust was in my brakes with about 8k miles on them. They don't really self dump, there aren't any vents. So, bottom line is, if you can, pull the drums before you adjust the brakes and check it all out. That way you can also see where to stick the spoon in to adjust the star wheel.

I answered my own question from the video. Not auto-adjust.

I will look at the link you provided, but how do you tell if you have self adjusting breaks or you have to adjust them yourself. :) I have Dexter breaks on my Cameo and it mentioned both. They said something about a plug in the rear. I took a look and I see on the lower center to elliptical what looks like plugs, not one. They are about 1" long and 1/4" high.