Trailer wiring issues
Hello again folks! Here's my problem: when dragging my bumper pull down the road, sometimes I lose my trailer brakes. This happened with my old truck and my new one. I took the truck to the shop th...
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I had the same issue. Sometimes you have brakes, sometime you don't. My problem was a bad ground at the pin box and shorts in the wires that ran through the axles. Even though the the trailer was basically new, there was enough surface rust on the inside of the axle to rub away the insulation and cause a short. There was a broken grommet that allowed for another short.
I ended up ripping all of the brake wiring out and rewiring using the star method. Wires that needed to run across the axles were moved to a section of PVC conduit mounted to the backside of the axles. The wires that ran through the underbelly were encased in flex conduit.I went ahead and upgraded the wires to 10 AWG. The none weatherproof pin box that used wire nuts was replaced with a weather proof one that used bus connections.
Check the wires on the inside of the drums to make sure there's no shorts going on in there. Sometimes the clips that retain the wires fall off and the wire rub itself raw against the moving parts. The insulation on the wires can burn off as well and cause shorts and failures.
I ended up ripping all of the brake wiring out and rewiring using the star method. Wires that needed to run across the axles were moved to a section of PVC conduit mounted to the backside of the axles. The wires that ran through the underbelly were encased in flex conduit.I went ahead and upgraded the wires to 10 AWG. The none weatherproof pin box that used wire nuts was replaced with a weather proof one that used bus connections.
Check the wires on the inside of the drums to make sure there's no shorts going on in there. Sometimes the clips that retain the wires fall off and the wire rub itself raw against the moving parts. The insulation on the wires can burn off as well and cause shorts and failures.
