Since this is my first post, mods, please move it to the appropriate section if this is not the right area.Recently, we had an issue with our Pace American 24' enclosed car trailer with the brakes on the driver side heating up to the point of bubbling the freshly painted rims. I just replaced the backing plate assembly with new ones for all 4 wheels and had the drums machined. When I pulled the driver side wheels and drums, the red grease was now a dark brownish color and had lots of metal flake in it. 3 of the 4 bearings were scored so I replaced them all with new Timken bearings and races as well as putting new seals on. Whats weird is the driver side and pass side bearings were adjusted the same way.After replacing the bearings in the driver side, greasing the bearings, and adjusting everything, we took the trailer out for a drive now with our antique car inside for weight to test it out. After a short drive, the same thing happened. What am I missing? We are going to be traveling about 3 hrs driving out to Hershey, Pa coming up in the next couple of weeks for a major car show and we do not want to either have the grease in the hubs catch fire or be stranded on the side of the road.Can anyone suggest what I might check next? Oh, we had 10 volts at each of the magnets for each of the 4 wheels. Voltage read anywhere between 10.2 to 10.6 volts at each of the wheels.

Tell us exactly how you are adjusting the wheel bearings and the brakes.

Wheel bearings I'm torquing down to 50 ft. lbs per the Dexter service manual then backing off the nut to it being hand tight then locking the fold over washer tab.Brakes I spin the wheel off the ground till I hear a little bit of brake drag, then back off three clicks on the star wheel.

I tried the same 50 lb ft then back off procedure once on a wheel bearing years ago and it burned up in short order. I really think the 50 lb ft is just too tight for what we're trying to accomplish. That being said I now grab the center nut with a channel lock pliers and tighten it tight while rotating the hub. Then without rotating I back off and hand tighten. By hand tighten though I mean just grabbing the nut with my fingertips and tightening it down until it stops. If the nut winds up in a position to where you can't lock it down, always loosen it slightly to align it, never tighten it.On your trailer I would probably repack the bearings again, then leave the nut one notch looser than you did before. Drive the trailer around the block then jack that side up again and with a hand on the top and bottom of the tire (12 and 6 o'clock positions) see if you can rock the tire in and out. If it has no play or extremely limited play I would run it like that.

X2 I think there to tight, just think how tight they get when heated up,

ok, but why would only the driver side be getting hotter than the pass. side? Everything was tightened up the same. All 4 wheels have a little bit of play when you grab it either at 6 and 12 or 3 and 9.When I got the new backing plate assemblies, the guy asked me what color wire magnets I had and told him white. We got the new ones with black wire insulation. Could a different magnet on the one side be causing the issues? (Yes, I made sure to get lefts on the left sides and rights on the right sides.)

driver side brakes heating up way more than pass side

31 Replies

resq302
Explorer
Oct 02, 2015
Ok, so excellent news...... my 2012 Ram 1500 still had fluctuating volts (0.07-1.4 volts) going to the blue wire at the junction box with all of the wiring disconnected for the brakes. My fathers 2014 Ram 1500 still had fluctuating voltage but his was only 0.00-0.02 volts which I thought was acceptable. (Both trucks have the factory integrated brake controllers.) We got everything hooked back up, I double checked the adjustment on the spindle nuts (tightened the nut and then loosened it without spinning the hub and hand tightened the nut backing off the nut to the closes area I could put the tang over into) , and also double checked the adjustment on the brakes (tightened up the shoes till the wheel would not spin either way, then backed off the star wheel 10 clicks). At this point, we still heard the magnets clicking on and off like a turn signal flasher would. According to the service department at Ram, this was the truck sensing the trailer. We took the truck out for a test drive with the trailer and had our 70 challenger convertible in the trailer for weight. We drove about maybe a half hour around my Dad's neighbor hood and stopped twice, checking the hub area with an infrared thermometer. I am happy to say that the brakes slowly heated up. First stop (about 10-15 mins into the drive) was 122-123 degrees on the driver side and the pass side was 118 degrees at the rear wheel, and 106 at the pass. side front wheel. At the second stop, the temps only slightly increased. I checked the hub temps when we returned home and we read 130 and 132 on the driver side (front / rear) and the pass side was 128 and 108 on the pass side. (rear / front). So I am happy with those numbers unless they are supposed to be a lot lower than that. The driver side did seem significantly cooler than the last time we test drove it. We also had the brake controller set at 6.5 by the end of the test drive. We started out at 8.5 and thought it was grabbing too much so we backed it down.
westend
Explorer
Sep 30, 2015
resq302 wrote:
Ok so I was at my Dads today and noticed a pulsating tapping noise coming from the brakes. It turns out that our 2012 and 2014 Ram 1500s have a pulsating voltage coming from the controller. This would seem to allow the magnets to catch and expand the brakes. Granted, it was only a max of 1.2 varying down to .02 at times. Checking into this situation further it seems to be a common problem while Ram does not want to acknowledge the problem. Someone on another forum said to put a 12 volt light bulb in the blue trailer brake line as a resistor to drop that pulsating voltage before it gets to the brake magnets.
The light might help with the pulsating but it will also draw current when the brakes are fully engaged. Have you tried setting the controllers to a less aggressive setting?
resq302
Explorer
Sep 30, 2015
Ok so I was at my Dads today and noticed a pulsating tapping noise coming from the brakes. It turns out that our 2012 and 2014 Ram 1500s have a pulsating voltage coming from the controller. This would seem to allow the magnets to catch and expand the brakes. Granted, it was only a max of 1.2 varying down to .02 at times. Checking into this situation further it seems to be a common problem while Ram does not want to acknowledge the problem. Someone on another forum said to put a 12 volt light bulb in the blue trailer brake line as a resistor to drop that pulsating voltage before it gets to the brake magnets.
resq302
Explorer
Sep 28, 2015
One thing that I just did think of was that both of the controllers were set to 10 on both trucks when we tested it with the 69 GTX convertible in the trailer. Could an over adjusted brake controller cause the brakes to heat up too much?
PaulJ2
Explorer
Sep 25, 2015
Lynnmor wrote:
PaulJ2 wrote:
Magnet should not be in constant contact with the drum until it is energized. However it should be very close and may touch a bit.

Not true, a light spring keeps the magnet in contact with the drum. There is usually a bit of scraping noise from this, which is normal.

Not so on mine. But oh well, maybe on others.
resq302
Explorer
Sep 25, 2015
Ok, thats good to know, Lynnmor. Thanks. The way that some people were making it seem was that the magnet only made contact with the face of the drum when it was energized and not all the time.

I can't wait to get back to my parents house and figure out why this is happening.
Lynnmor
Explorer II
Sep 25, 2015
PaulJ2 wrote:
Magnet should not be in constant contact with the drum until it is energized. However it should be very close and may touch a bit.

Not true, a light spring keeps the magnet in contact with the drum. There is usually a bit of scraping noise from this, which is normal.
resq302
Explorer
Sep 24, 2015
The magnets on the driver side (both wheels) seem to make more of a scraping / rubbing noise on the driver side than the pass side now that I think of it. I just thought it was the pressure of what the spring was that pushed the magnet out to make contact with the face of the drum.
opnspaces
Navigator III
Sep 24, 2015
Does the magnet seem to contact the drum differently on only this wheel, or are they all about the same? If only one wheel If you unplug the umbilical does the magnet still drag?
resq302
Explorer
Sep 24, 2015
Ok, cause it sounds like the magnet is rubbing / touching the face of the drum when I spin the wheel. It always has seemed to be like that since we got the trailer.