Intermittent brakes!!!!

[Nicholsfamily05]

Good morning.

So have a question as I am trying to find out where my issues lays.

Took our rig out for the first weekend yesterday with our new truck.

Hooked up to truck and the it didn't immediately show up as trailer connected. Pulled the plug out checked connections and replaced it. Truck recognized it and all was good, did my pull test and it worked fine.

Pulled out our yard and was on highway 5 minutes later. Got to the top of the bridge and dash board started lighting up and dinging.
It would flash check trailer brakes and then check trailer wiring then would go completely to trailer brakes disconnected.
Pulled over checked what I could and bam came back to life. Started out again and 5 minutes later all over again then it would come back on and work then off.

Made it to campground as it was just down the road. Usually a 15 minute ride this time was about 25 with the stop and the super slow speeds once trailer started acting up.

So I began to check connections and everything appears fine. Started at the pin box and when removed wire nuts for brake wires saw they only had a few strands connected the rest were cut off. Cut off the wires and redid the connects the proper way but still no luck.

So should I start removing the factory connections at the axels and redoing them or just have the dealership come out and take it at check out time.

The truck is brand new and works fine with my other two trailers.
I built my last two trailers so I know how it all works but not sure if there is anything inside this trailer that could be loose as they seem to be different gauge wires that emerge from the under belly to go to the axles that connect to even smaller haulage wires.


Wife was able to snap the photos in the truck.

[mkirsch]

All my trailers have the brake wires spliced just outside of the backing plate. I would imagine the axles come from the manufacturer pre-assembled to the point where there is a pigtail coming out of the brake backer plate, and the trailer wiring is attached at that point.

If someone spazzes out during assembly they could conceivably yank the wire out of the brake magnet while building the rest of the trailer. Not wanting to get in trouble for delaying production, they'd likely "kick dirt on it" and hope nobody noticed.

[ACZL]

Pretty much what I figured. If your lucky, Crossroads will either make it right, talk to axle/brake mfr on your behalf or tell you to talk to axle/brake mfr. We too had some wires that for some reason were not connected at the brake. Don't know how, where, why. Perhaps someone can chime in, but do brakes come from axle mfr already attached and wired on axle?

[mkirsch]

A lot of these trailers come with "E-Z Lube" axles, which have a zerk fitting in the end of the spindle. You pop out the little rubber plug and pump grease into the zerk, which is SUPPOSED to push all the old grease back out the cap.

Sometimes the dust seals on the insides of the hubs don't hold, and some of that grease works its way out onto the brakes. Some people swear by the E-Z Lube spindles, some swear AT them.

[Nicholsfamily05]

Good afternoon

So the repair shop called today and informed me they fixed our trailer.

The problems they found were

3 of the 4 magnets were not working.

When opened up the wires inside were no connected.
When I go in and actually talk to the repair tech I'm going to ask what they mean by disconnected.

And lastly they said there was to much grease inside.
Don't know how that happened since we have never packed them and the trailer is only 2.5 years old.

So going to contact Cross Roads and see what they will do for us

[Nicholsfamily05]

Ok update today.
We disconnected the adptor that feeds the bed hook up thinking there maybe an issue with that connector. Well when connected still no brakes.
We erased all the trailers out of the truck and tried that. Still nothing no brakes.
There are lights and battery charging on the trailer.

So I took my grandfathers truck and hooked up to that. As soon as the plug was connected to the truck it blew out the fuse.

So end result we brought the camper to the dealership to be diagnosed for the issue.

[Nicholsfamily05]

Well we are trying to figure this out because I had built a 33' ATV trailer out of a 79 travel trailer.
It was just frame and wheels. Found it back in afield and all the wiring had been cut off it except for the little stubs for the brakes.
Dragged it home and rebuilt it. Amazingly the brakes worked perfectly.
This trailer when connected to the truck works perfectly. It is picked up right off the bat the brakes fiction with the Manila and foot pedal.

The only thing that we actually just though of today while talking about it was that the new 2016 truck is designed for multiple trailers. In fact it has several spots for trailers.
So our next game plan is to try the trailer in added slot two and see what happens.

I do not know about running lights which is odd for me becaus I usually whenever I move my trailer I have all my lights on.
I will have to check that.

[Muddydogs]

Just had this problem on my 2014 Ram truck. I haven't messed with it but my first thought was its the plug in the truck not holding the trailer plug tight enough since when I mess with the plug things start working again. Are your running lights working when your no brake warning comes on? Sometime the simple solution is the right solution.

[BenK]

gmw photos wrote:
Welcome to the world of factory IBC.
snip...

Now that GMW made this comment...time to toss this into the discussion/thoughts
that will continue for a long time...

First career was in industrial controls (robotics, automation, process
control) and designed & dealt with 'highly integrated' systems

Last career before retiring was in one of the largest computer
corporations of the world. Five concurrent hats. One was to the research labs.

One day the guys at the labs called me over to look at a EV2 proto-type.
The OEM could NOT get it to run well/reliably. Every once in a while
it flaked out and did something wacky

They had converted all the controls to JAVA scripts and connected them
all together to form a 'highly integrated' system

Tod the scientists to get a real time person...they called me... :B

Told them not going to do that for them and they found several interns
who understood and studying controls...COOL !!!

Turns out the OEM did not understand, nor had anyone who did in the
bowels of their engineering groups

There was not master/slave hierarchy...so all the computers thought
they were 'masters' or didn't listen to the others

Fixed it and the OEM killed that program anyway...as an all electric
of the 1990's was going to kill their relationships with big oil...

Back on this topic, which is smack on the above topic, is all about
how the OEM stitched in each/all the computers into the system and
how they established the master/slave relationships. On the slaves,
they too have a hierarchical tree (many sub-master) reporting back to
the singular master

If anyone of the sub-masters and/or slaves do NOT report correctly, the
whole system might go into whatever mode the software says to


Yes..."Welcome to the world of factory IBC"...

[gmw_photos]

Welcome to the world of factory IBC. They seem to really require total perfection in all the wiring and components in order to work correctly.
I have two trucks ( Ford and Nissan ). One of my four trailers was problematic when hooked to the Ford IBC, but then would work normally when hooked to the Nissan ( prodigy P2 ). In the end ( after chasing what I thought was just bad wiring connections ) to fix the problem I replaced the brake assemblies on one of the trailer axles.

The IBC's work well enough when they work, but sure enough can be picky about everything.

[Nicholsfamily05]

Well. Today I finally got a chance to work on the trailer again.
So I replace the trailer cord ( Umbilical cord ) and everything like before worked great in the driveway.
Pull tested it held the truck in place and everything dash said everything good to go.
Out for the test drive we go. Pulled out of the driveway and bam nothing. Brakes went away dash lights up saying check trailer wiring.
Backed it back into driveway and the whole time they never came back on.
So think its time to take it to the dealership and let them deal with it.

[Nicholsfamily05]

No I didn't replace that.
But that's the next step. Ordered one today from Amazon so that will be this weekends project.

[Lynnmor]

Maybe I missed it, didn't see where you replaced the trailer plug.

[Nicholsfamily05]

Well no brakes again.
Returned to my fathers house to finally bring our RV up to our house yesterday.
Loaded everything up went through the normal checks and checked the brakes.
All turned on and family gave the thumbs up they heard everything. Did our pull test and all was good.

Pulled out onto the road and was about a mile and half down the road and dash board lit up saying no brakes.
Pulled over checked it all out and removed cable and put back still nothing. So turned around and brought it back to my fathers house.

Looks like my next days off will be pulling every bring else apart to figure it out.

[trail-explorer]

Trailer manufacturers are notorious for using shoddy tools when making the crimp connection from the trailer wiring to the axle wiring. Heck, I've seen some use wire nuts!

Check those, I'd recommend doing them over, using heat shrinkable splices.

Also, some trailer pigtail manufacturers don't make the plug according to the exact spec, so it fits really loose in the truck plug. There's actually a GM tech bulletin about this because the problem became a frequent occurrence at dealers with customers assuming it was a truck problem, and it wasn't.