Trailer Brake Problem- sorry long post.

Question

I had an unusual problem coming back from the campground yesterday and was going see if anyone has had it happen and what the cure was. The brakes were working as always going down but when we started back when I broke hard the trailer brakes would pulse violently. When it did this the voltage reading on the brake control was steady but it was as if the brake were on-off-on-off.... The control is an older prodigy and it gave no faults when it did this. Also when you applied the manual on the control it didn't do the pulsing. I turned the boost feature off and had the same deal. Once home and unhitched I took the truck out and hit the brakes hard multiple times and no pulsing from the truck. The only idea I have is the control is bad or a wire grounding out, though if grounding I figured the prodigy would have gave a fault warning. Any Ideas would be helpful!

chuck_thehammer · Answer

sounds like a bad connection .. 7 pin or trailer wiring issue for brakes. and CHECK the grounds....power is OUT and BACK....  power out and ground return.

ol__grouch · Answer

rvluversnc93 wrote:I had an unusual problem coming back from the campground yesterday and was going see if anyone has had it happen and what the cure was. The brakes were working as always going down but when we started back when I broke hard the trailer brakes would pulse violently. When it did this the voltage reading on the brake control was steady but it was as if the brake were on-off-on-off.... The control is an older prodigy and it gave no faults when it did this. Also when you applied the manual on the control it didn't do the pulsing. I turned the boost feature off and had the same deal. Once home and unhitched I took the truck out and hit the brakes hard multiple times and no pulsing from the truck. The only idea I have is the control is bad or a wire grounding out, though if grounding I figured the prodigy would have gave a fault warning. Any Ideas would be helpful!I had a similar problem once. Turning left, my trailer brakes would grab release, grab, release and so on. After dropping the trailer, I noticed the light on the brake controller would flash and go off, flash and go off when I had my left turn signal on. Inspection of the wires to the plug in back showed a spot where something had hit it and caused a leak in the insulation. Water had gotten in there and worked its way down to the plug. The wires were held in the plug by screws. The screw had rusted and the fluffy rust was causing a short circuit. Each time my left turn signal would come on, a signal went to the controller to engage the brakes. Cleaning and resealing the insulation fixed it and it never reoccured.

likes_to_tow · Answer

For all intermittent or weird brake problems the first thing I would do (after all the easy obvious stuff is checked) is remove the brake wire from inside the axle where they route it to the other side. Factories drill a 3/8 hole in the axle on one side and run the wires through and come out the other side through a 3/8 hole.
Where the wire enters or exits these small holes shorts will occur. Also where the wire lays inside the axle tube it will chafe.

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Trailer Brake Problem- sorry long post.

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