Brakes on a Big Country jamming on

[caissiel]

I have been traveling the east coast on my way to Florida, and while driving on I84 to Scranton PA my trailer brakes started to jam the wheels so hard that I could not put the brakes on the truck without draging the wheels at normal setting of 70%. So I removed the front right side wheel and noticed the seal was all crooked and pushed right in against the inner bearing, grease was on the magnet and lining, while the drum was covered with grease. I cleaned everything with Brake Cleaner, and proceded to do the same to all the other 3 wheels. The seal on 2 more hubs were dented and looked like they were installed with a hammer, and not a seal installer tool like I have been trained to do in the mechanical repair industry.
After doing that the brakes worked well at any setting without jamming the wheels. After traveling 200 miles I noticed that the wheels on the driver side would jam again at low speed but braked hard at higher speed. So for the remainder of today I travelled with the brake setting at about 45% and feeling a fairly good drag at higher speed while they are jerking a lot at low speed. My concern is that for the last 16 years of braking with electric brakes and working on them this problem has never happened to me before. It apears as if the seals were not installed properly, and the greasing caused the seals to fail.
What is the CR seal number or size requirements, for the 7000Lbs axle seals, and are the brake lining damaged enough that they will keep jaming. Most of the jobs I did before when seals failed I ended changing the lining to.

 

[lwmcguir]

Axle Manual For Lippert

Hope this helps. Almost sounds like your drums are out of round. Something more serious than poorly installed seals would be my opinon. Any way you got straight 12 volts to the brakes?

 

[cliffbuilt]

Sounds like your wheel bearings were over greased, and the seals were replaced by an unqualified mechanic.

Your Sig dose not give the year of your equipment? If your still under warranty I'd be looking for a dealer ASAP. Either way,as you've experienced new brake shoes are needed.

 

[caissiel]

For a while I thought that my brake controler did not work well and that is why I checked every wheel and it solved the jamming problem, but it came back. I will at the begining of the week. This unit has been a curse since I took delivery.

 

[lwmcguir]

Noted the attachment didn't attach to the earlier reply. Sure will be interesting to hear what the root cause is regarding the brakes. Something is really strange here. Sorry to hear you are having issues with the BC. We really liked that floor plan.

 

[moose53]

Check tires

If you have had problems with brakes locking up make sure to check your tires. I flat spotted one with a panic stop in Nevada. I was just lucky that I noticed the tire while setting up at the next campground.

Harvey

 

[dreamer]

I had a somewhat similar brake problem while visiting P.E.I a few years ago.Some days the brakes worked fine and then they would instantly lockup once or twice and be fine again. After many wasted hours taking things apart I somehow accidentally figured out that i had one broken conductor in the connector that the wire goes through in the brake baking plate. Sometime there was continuity and sometimes not. Fixed no more problems like that.
I really think your problem is in the brake controller and or how it is set up if adjustable.Some have settings for aggressivenes and possibly yours is set to aggressive.To test things I would tap a voltmetre into the brake output line from the controller and watch how quickly and how much voltage is applied while braking with the trailer hooked up and moving. If you were just trying to slow down gently I would not expect too see much more than 6 volts. If it shows 12 volts instantly that is why your wheels have locked up.
I recently installed a prodigy controller and there is a world of improvement over the cheaper controllers I had before.I hope this helps

 

[John T Bettencourt]

dreamer is right. I put a prodigy controller in my Duramax GMC and it made a big difference Well worth the little extra money.

 

[ncrebel8]

I think we need more information, What brand and model brake controller do you have? Im not sure how your controller works, but 70% sounds like alot. You may have a problem such as a broken connector that is only allowing full contact at times that locks up the brakes. Then again I dont know what type of controller you have. Mine has a digital readout that goes from 0-10. the highest setting ive ever run on any of our trailers is 4.5. Any thing above that has to much trailer brake for me. I want the trailer to stop itself and the truck to stop itself. My thinking is that if the trailer is dragging the truck then you are overworking the trl brakes (which are much weaker and more fragile than the truck brakes).

 

[RubiconAg]

I would venture to say that the problem is not with the controller. Once grease enters a braking assembly, trailer or TV, you pretty much have to replace the pads/shoes and clean everything untill it is free of grease. Grease that is stuck between the pad suface and rotating surface will actually act like glue and can cause brakes to lock up. If you have had work done recently to the brake system I would contact the mechanic immediately. If its a new trailer, sounds like there was a rookie on the brake assemly line that messed up the seal installation.

I would not discount excessive braking as the cause of the problem either. Its probably not the controller itself but rather the settting. If you have your brake setting to tight and are expecting the trailer to slow your TV during a long downhill grade you could have overheated them and burned the seal. This would be easy to identify by burnt grease. I have seen this several times. Your trailer brakes should only be slightly tighter than your truck braking system and remember to use the engine whenever possible for long duration braking.

 

[andy]

brakes locking up

I had the same problem with seals leaking except mine didnt want to stop I replaced the seals with better ones soaked an cleaned the shoes with brake kleen , they seem to work fine now an removed some of the grease in the hub . i think the excessive grease was more the problem than the seals at least they were double lip not like my previous key_ _ _ _ _ camper that had single lip an threw grease everwhere six month after I had it an they woun't fix it

 

[caissiel]

I have been driving with the unit set at lower levels and so far it has been ok. My problem is still the seals and they will be replaced. There was not that much grease on the shoes but the magnets were covered on 2 of the hubs. It looked like grease had mostly dripped on the magnets, could have been due to overgreasing and not realy leaking while driving.