Hi everyone...
I recently got home from a trip from Louisiana up to the Hocking Hills/Old Man's Cave area of Ohio. The road to the campground is just a few miles long, but staggeringly steep for Ohio (of all places); while going up and down those short steeeeep hills my brakes started acting strange on my 19ft Bambi.
The Prodigy brake controller in my SSR started to show "n.c." meaning "no connection" about 75% of the time whenever I would touch the brakes; when I would let off, it would show "c." for "connected" meaning that the controller knew it was connected, but that there was a fault in the system somewhere.
The brakes would either not work at all or would slam on like a freight train was pulling the back of the trailer.
At the campground I got my fat self under the trailer (at night of course) where I was laughingly attacked by about 100 daddy long-leg spiders (the feeling of one sheepishly walking across your face as you're holding a hot soldering iron is something to be experienced) and I was shocked to find that the curbside brake wires were crimped, but the factory heat-shrink tubing was literally never actually heat shrunk...and while merely touching the wires, the ground wire literally came apart in my hand where they were half-heartedly and clumsily crimped together. Of course, the unshrunken heat-shrink tubing fell off the wire when the wires broke in half. The positive wiring was done the same; i.e., haphazardly crimped, with the loose heat-shrink tubing loosely dangling on the wires but never actually applied to the crimped joint. So, I dug out the aforementioned soldering iron and re-connected the two wires properly on the curbside. I gladly then used the previously unused heat-shrink tubing supplied by the incompetent Airstream worker (who didn't bother to do his job) to now protect the newly properly soldered wire connections...then I wrapped both with a generous supply of black 3M electrical tape just to be safe.
But...when I checked the roadside connections, they WERE crimped satisfactorily, and the heat-shrink tubing WAS properly shrunk on the wiring protecting the crimped joints, but to my amazement I found another problem...the wiring was sheepishly kept in place by plastic tie-wraps supplied by Airstream which were still in place (on both sides), but enough play was left in the wiring by the shock so that one of the two wires on the roadside actually chafed itself enough so that it was shorting out against the metal shock housing. I was tired of being molested by spiders, so I didn't take apart and solder the roadside connections (they seemed fine and were actually properly crimped) but I did use a generous amount of the 3M electrical tape to protect the chafed area. I then promptly checked the wiring on both sides to be sure there wasn't too much play in any of the wires so that neither side could contact the shock housings and short out...but it looks SUPER easy for the wiring to do just that. There is a fine line between not enough play and too much to cause a potentially very bad problem. And, it's clear that the factory couldn't care less to check such things...
So...get out there and just check your brake wiring to be sure they are properly connected to the actual trailer brake magnets but more importantly make sure there isn't too much play in your wiring that can cause wire chafing and breaking that will immediately lead to a total loss of trailer brakes...
Even on my small trailer it was a bit of a jarring experience to suddenly lose brakes when I needed them most...
Once corrected my brakes work perfectly...
Better be safe than sorry!!!
:)
I recently got home from a trip from Louisiana up to the Hocking Hills/Old Man's Cave area of Ohio. The road to the campground is just a few miles long, but staggeringly steep for Ohio (of all places); while going up and down those short steeeeep hills my brakes started acting strange on my 19ft Bambi.
The Prodigy brake controller in my SSR started to show "n.c." meaning "no connection" about 75% of the time whenever I would touch the brakes; when I would let off, it would show "c." for "connected" meaning that the controller knew it was connected, but that there was a fault in the system somewhere.
The brakes would either not work at all or would slam on like a freight train was pulling the back of the trailer.
At the campground I got my fat self under the trailer (at night of course) where I was laughingly attacked by about 100 daddy long-leg spiders (the feeling of one sheepishly walking across your face as you're holding a hot soldering iron is something to be experienced) and I was shocked to find that the curbside brake wires were crimped, but the factory heat-shrink tubing was literally never actually heat shrunk...and while merely touching the wires, the ground wire literally came apart in my hand where they were half-heartedly and clumsily crimped together. Of course, the unshrunken heat-shrink tubing fell off the wire when the wires broke in half. The positive wiring was done the same; i.e., haphazardly crimped, with the loose heat-shrink tubing loosely dangling on the wires but never actually applied to the crimped joint. So, I dug out the aforementioned soldering iron and re-connected the two wires properly on the curbside. I gladly then used the previously unused heat-shrink tubing supplied by the incompetent Airstream worker (who didn't bother to do his job) to now protect the newly properly soldered wire connections...then I wrapped both with a generous supply of black 3M electrical tape just to be safe.
But...when I checked the roadside connections, they WERE crimped satisfactorily, and the heat-shrink tubing WAS properly shrunk on the wiring protecting the crimped joints, but to my amazement I found another problem...the wiring was sheepishly kept in place by plastic tie-wraps supplied by Airstream which were still in place (on both sides), but enough play was left in the wiring by the shock so that one of the two wires on the roadside actually chafed itself enough so that it was shorting out against the metal shock housing. I was tired of being molested by spiders, so I didn't take apart and solder the roadside connections (they seemed fine and were actually properly crimped) but I did use a generous amount of the 3M electrical tape to protect the chafed area. I then promptly checked the wiring on both sides to be sure there wasn't too much play in any of the wires so that neither side could contact the shock housings and short out...but it looks SUPER easy for the wiring to do just that. There is a fine line between not enough play and too much to cause a potentially very bad problem. And, it's clear that the factory couldn't care less to check such things...
So...get out there and just check your brake wiring to be sure they are properly connected to the actual trailer brake magnets but more importantly make sure there isn't too much play in your wiring that can cause wire chafing and breaking that will immediately lead to a total loss of trailer brakes...
Even on my small trailer it was a bit of a jarring experience to suddenly lose brakes when I needed them most...
Once corrected my brakes work perfectly...
Better be safe than sorry!!!
:)
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire