Brake Controller - Short
Hello, The other day I had some truck problems so a friend had to tow my trailer while my truck was being towed. He has a prodigy brake controller that would show a short and then it would go out....
Forum Discussion
mnichols wrote:
Well I did a quick check under the trailer. I started at the box where the 7 pin plug terminates. Everything looked good there. I then went to the axles. Checked the wires where they go through the axles and pulled a few inches out on each side, wires actually looked good. Where the wires go into the hubs all looked good. I checked where they are sliced at each wheel and two of the wires looked like they got pinched. I'm not sure it was bad enough to cause the issue I'm having but I'll probably redo the splice and replace the wire. Thanks
The wire insulation will chafe most likely in the middle of the tube since the wire will droop down, hence the reason one poster mentioned pulling some of the wire OUT of the tube. In theory this would suspend the wire in mid air inside the tube. This would eliminate the wire from touching the tube but at the same time you are now suspending the wire and that will eventually lead to the wire stretching or breaking.
I meet a lot of resistance on this forum when I tell folks to simply replace the wire and do it correctly instead of messing around and trying to trouble shoot the mess the manufacturers made.
At the same time you will NEED to pull ALL the drums and inspect the magnet wires from the outside right to the magnets. Make sure the magnets are not worn/deteriorated either. If you find a nick in the magnet wires you can generally get away with covering the nicked portion with a piece of heat shrink tubing. Then try routing the wires away from moving parts.
Intermittent problems like this are the most frustrating ones to locate and fix, therefore I state that it is often easier and quicker to rewire it and be done with it.
