5th wheel brake wiring
Hello Folks,
We have been wrangling with brake power issues on our 5th wheel for a while now. Most recently, I had an RV service company replace the 7 way pig tail running from the 5th wheel to the bed of my truck. This worked great for 4.5 hours of a 5 hour drive.
After we got back home, I set out to find the problem. I first raised the coach and went to test the breakaway switch, which I have done before. Sadly, the breakaway pin snapped off with 1/2 of it inside the switch mechanism. Ho hum. I then replaced the breakaway switch and confirmed it worked. However, my brakes still didn't work when applying the manual brake controller or pressing on the brake pedal in the truck.
I suspected a connection was bad on the pigtail as that was the most recent change. So, I started with the butt connector installed by the RV tech that mated the pigtail to the 5th wheel.
I noticed that there was a blue power wire from the truck running to the 5th wheel. Good! So I removed the butt connector and soldered the connection. At this same connection point, there was a blue power wire coming from the breakaway switch and teed off of this truck -> RV power wire. I wasn't sure why it was there, but I soldered it on, making a 3 way connection.
I spun the rig tires and hopped in my truck to operate the manual brake controller. Success! The brakes locked up! So, it's all fixed, right?
I lowered the rig, connected it to the hitch, and moved it forward and aft. Using the manual brake controller, the stopping power seemed to diminish after a few uses.
I will raise the rig again and spin the tires manually, then test the controller again, but I'm confused as to why the power would seem to diminish.
A test drive is obviously next to check the inertia braking capacity.
I know the wires at the axles have patches in them too. Now that I am a solder king, I plan to solder (and head shrink) those connections as well to be sure good connections all around.
Should I be thinking of something else? Any other tests I should be running?
Thanks for reading this long post and responding with some ideas.
Travel safely folks!
Tom
We have been wrangling with brake power issues on our 5th wheel for a while now. Most recently, I had an RV service company replace the 7 way pig tail running from the 5th wheel to the bed of my truck. This worked great for 4.5 hours of a 5 hour drive.
After we got back home, I set out to find the problem. I first raised the coach and went to test the breakaway switch, which I have done before. Sadly, the breakaway pin snapped off with 1/2 of it inside the switch mechanism. Ho hum. I then replaced the breakaway switch and confirmed it worked. However, my brakes still didn't work when applying the manual brake controller or pressing on the brake pedal in the truck.
I suspected a connection was bad on the pigtail as that was the most recent change. So, I started with the butt connector installed by the RV tech that mated the pigtail to the 5th wheel.
I noticed that there was a blue power wire from the truck running to the 5th wheel. Good! So I removed the butt connector and soldered the connection. At this same connection point, there was a blue power wire coming from the breakaway switch and teed off of this truck -> RV power wire. I wasn't sure why it was there, but I soldered it on, making a 3 way connection.
I spun the rig tires and hopped in my truck to operate the manual brake controller. Success! The brakes locked up! So, it's all fixed, right?
I lowered the rig, connected it to the hitch, and moved it forward and aft. Using the manual brake controller, the stopping power seemed to diminish after a few uses.
I will raise the rig again and spin the tires manually, then test the controller again, but I'm confused as to why the power would seem to diminish.
A test drive is obviously next to check the inertia braking capacity.
I know the wires at the axles have patches in them too. Now that I am a solder king, I plan to solder (and head shrink) those connections as well to be sure good connections all around.
Should I be thinking of something else? Any other tests I should be running?
Thanks for reading this long post and responding with some ideas.
Travel safely folks!
Tom
