Brake Controller Setting Help

This is a story that hits close to home. Factory Ford Tow Command.

2012 36 foot long Heartland trailer 12k pounds. Every since we bought it the brakes continued to get worse and worse. Not better.

I finally did some investigating only to find out the factory grease seals had failed and contaminated all the magnets. Much to my luck, the shoes were for all intents spared by grease contamination. Cleaned all that up thoroughly and replaced the seals with double lips and also repacked the bearings.

I also don't think the factory or dealer ever adjusted the brakes. I averaged almost 30 clicks of the star wheel adjuster amongst the four wheel to get the shoes to contact the drums.

One other thing I noticed was a huge voltage loss from the pin box to the magnets (showing 8 volts at the magnets). I ended up rewiring the axles so I had 12 gauge wires running all the way to the magnets. This gained me an additional 1.5 volts at the magnets.

All this said and done, I still have my gain set to 9.5. It will not lock the brakes up hot or cold. Haven't tried gravel. The brakes are better than ever since new but I was hoping for more. I'm going to continue burnishing them in before I give up on them.

It's uncomfortable driving in traffic and having to worry about panic brake stops.

I've towed other smaller trailers with this truck, and have locked the brakes up easily because I forgot to turn the gain back down from Heartland gain.

I would really like to install disc brakes on the trailer, but holy moly that's an expensive proposition.

As others have said, inspect, then adjust the trailer brakes.

The OEM brake controller on my 2012 F150 Supercrew does basically the same thing. It slows the trailer well but won't lock up the brakes when gain is set to 10. The aftermarket brake controller that I had on the previous tow vehicle would lock the brakes when set to 5 or 6. Something is different in the actual output of the controller.

As was stated above, the brake setting changes the brakes warm up so any initial setting will have to change as you drive.

You may need to adjust trailer brakes. My 13 250 manual says to set controller to 6, and go from there. You need to go about 20mph and squeeze the paddles to test on pavement.

I have mine set on 5, and it will just lock the trailer brakes on pavement, if you squeeze them quickly. For mine, even 6, was way too much.

Jerry

Remember the trailer brakes are NOT designed to stop the TV. So they won't. Plus not all TT brakes will lock up when you pull the manual lever. However, IF you are feeling a good strong braking action when you pull the lever. They are doing their job. If they start to jerk the TV at slower speed when warmed up. You have too much gain in them. TT brakes work MUCH better once they warm up.

drillagent wrote:

I finally got a chance to try and set up my brake controller as I was leaving the campground on our first camping trip with our new to us 5er. I was only able use a black top road and not gravel and could only get up to about 15mph before I started moving the paddles, but when I squeezed them completely together, the trailer slowed, but it wouldn't stop the truck. I even set the controller as far as it would go to 10, but it still wouldn't stop the truck. Am I doing something wrong, or should I get the trailer brakes checked? What am I looking for when checking the brakes? I have the OEM controller in my 2012 F250, and my trailer is in my signature. Thanks for any help.

find and read the instructions that came with the brake controller, many of the new electronic controllers must feel a deceleration to activate the trailer brakes.

Most time we only see the light turn from green to red as the brakes come on.

When was the last time brakes on trailer were adjusted?
Should manually adjust brakes then set up controller