Descending down a mountain
1st timer hauling North Carolina mountains. Little nervous about the descent on the way back to flat land. I will be towing my parents TT which is 7500lbs total weight. Give me any tips or pointer...
Forum Discussion
opnspaces wrote:
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I've never driven a downhill like that with the 20mph turns but I can see how that would heat the brakes up. Were the truck brakes starting to act funny that prompted you to use the trailer brakes alone? Just wondering because it seems that if the trailer brakes will fade faster then the truck it would be a mistake to use them alone to also slow the truck.
Didn't notice fade on the truck brakes but could definitely smell them half way down the mountain. That's when I started separately applying the trailer brakes.
I knew the trailer brakes were capable. They just weren't doing their job. The trailer weight was about 6500# on two 5200# axles with four 12" brakes. I had just adjusted the brakes a few days before so they would lock up on emergency stops, normal temperatures, at level 8/10 on the built-in Ford brake controller. So I had set the controller to 7.5/10 initially. But as those drums heat up and expand, you need more volts to get the same braking effort. So I started increasing the volts, eventually to 9.5/10 with no lock-up, and manually applying the trailer brakes when I noticed the truck brakes stinking.
In the old days, with drum brakes on cars, you just pressed harder on the brake pedal as they heated up. With electric trailer brakes you gotta do that electrically and manually as they heat up.
But like I said, it would have been smarter to pull over and let them cool off.
