electrical short in brake

[Spinal_Tap]

Has anyone had a short in one of their trailer brakes? We drove to a campground that was less than 30 miles and when we got there we noticed a pretty strong smell like burning brakes but not quite. Looked around and didn't see anything obvious. On the way out to another campground, a guy behind me alerted me to a bearing on the passenger side that was smoking pretty good. Thing is I just had an "under carriage" service done last winter.

I call the company up and the guy who serviced my trailer came out. Upon opening the tire in question up he thinks that I had a short in that brake. Asked what controller I had and showed him the Tekonsha P3. I looked when we first drove off and didn't see any error messages but I didn't pay much attention to it after than.

After taking the wheel and drum off, the whole thing looked black but I don't know what a continuously applied brake (burning) looks like compared to a burnt bearing.

I'm just trying to figure out if I can trust this guy/his company. If he's honest, then I want to figure out how to prevent the other three from doing the same.

Thanks,
Nate

[azrving]

Maybe he adjusted that set of shoes a little too tight.

[enblethen]

Doubtful whether the break-away is the issue as OP reported only one wheel had issue.

[beemerphile1]

Are you sure you didn't tow it with the breakaway pin pulled?

[Lynnmor]

marcsbigfoot20b27 wrote:
If he is honest and treats you right, don't forget to shout out the shops name. It's usually this guy screwed me, this shop sucks, etc.

It's nice to hear that someone got taken care of.

Did you read the post?

He didn't make it 30 miles after the "service."

This is what he said:

Has anyone had a short in one of their trailer brakes? We drove to a campground that was less than 30 miles and when we got there we noticed a pretty strong smell like burning brakes but not quite. Looked around and didn't see anything obvious. On the way out to another campground, a guy behind me alerted me to a bearing on the passenger side that was smoking pretty good. Thing is I just had an "under carriage" service done last winter.

I call the company up and the guy who serviced my trailer came out. Upon opening the tire in question up he thinks that I had a short in that brake.

[marcsbigfoot20b]

If he is honest and treats you right, don't forget to shout out the shops name. It's usually this guy screwed me, this shop sucks, etc.

It's nice to hear that someone got taken care of.

[Spinal_Tap]

WayneAt63044 wrote:

Are all the parts in the smoked brake assembly in their correct position and nothing missing or fell out when removing the drum?

All the parts appear to be in their correct position when he opened it up. What we saw was a lot of black soot with some grease. There wasn't much grease at all and the tech surmised that it may have oozed out and was caught in the "hubcap" part that was missing.

He fixed it, didn't charge me and said I should bring it in so he could have a more thorough look at the other three. So it appears he's a good guy, just his employees gave me a bad impression.

thanks everyone.

[WayneAt63044]

On 2 different trailers I've had brake parts fall off internally. The recent one ground up the adjusting screw but didn't preset a problem although the brake couldn't have been working properly. I found this on recent routine servicing of my bearings/brakes. On the first one the part that fell off internally wedged the brakes "on" and smoked everything in that one assembly. I had to remove the brake assembly roadside as the plastic nut covers had melted off everything was so hot. I used grease from another wheel to re-lube the bearings which survived the tremendous heat (took an hour to cool before I could work on it). I drove from central UT to Phoenix with 3 of 4 trailer brakes and couldn't tell one was missing. Long story short, you can have a mechanical problem that is not related to the service that was done and the brake controller would not sense the problem if it is not electrical in nature. I don't believe there is a way for a brake magnet or brake wiring to "short" to cause the brake to be continually applied. One side of the magnet is connected directly to chassis ground and if the hot side shorted the current would bypass the magnet so it would never energize and the brake controller would sense that.
Are all the parts in the smoked brake assembly in their correct position and nothing missing or fell out when removing the drum?

[ScottG]

As said before, it's not a "short" - which is some peoples description of any kind of electrical problem.
More likely the brake has come apart or you've used the EZ lube grease feature and the shoes are covered with grease.

[enblethen]

More apt to be a bearing issue then a brake issue.
Brakes require power to operate. If only one was acting up, then the others should have showed signs of a problem if it were brakes.
My guess would be the service tightened the bearing too much.

[Spinal_Tap]

Lynnmor wrote:

Spinal Tap wrote:

I'm just trying to figure out if I can trust this guy/his company. If he's honest, then I want to figure out how to prevent the other three from doing the same.

Thanks,
Nate

No, he is not honest. It wasn't a short in that brake, is was some other mechanical problem. A short would have resulted in no brakes in all wheels, you see they are all connected together.

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. The trailer is an 06' KZ Frontier 2305. The place I took it to for the under carriage service was Roger's Camping Trailers on Fremont Blvd in the East Bay area of the S.F Bay.

[Lynnmor]

Spinal Tap wrote:

I'm just trying to figure out if I can trust this guy/his company. If he's honest, then I want to figure out how to prevent the other three from doing the same.

Thanks,
Nate

No, he is not honest. It wasn't a short in that brake, is was some other mechanical problem. A short would have resulted in no brakes in all wheels, you see they are all connected together.