Cyclone brake issues

Rawhide

Member
My trailer brakes seem to be working sparaticly. I get a message which says trailer wiring issue.
When I apply the brakes, no trailer brakes. I checked and cleaned the connector plug, have tried plucking and following the wires. No issues found. Any ideas?
 

cookie

Administrator
Staff member
Have you checked the 7 pin plug at the truck for current when the brakes are supplied?
Locate the pin designated for brakes and using your multi meter, one probe to that pin and one probe to a good ground. Have someone apply the brakes or use the manual braking lever on the controller. Check your DC voltage.
You may also have bad magnets at your brakes.

Peace
Dave
 

danemayer

Well-known member
To determine if the problem is in the trailer, independent of the truck, do this:

Hitch up.
Pull the emergency breakaway cable out of the switch.
The trailer brakes should energize at full strength.
Pull the truck and trailer forward to see if there's any resistance.
Put the cable plunger back into the switch. The switch and the magnets will overheat if you leave it active for very long.

If you're not sure if the brakes activated, try again with one or more wheels off the ground. With brakes activated, the wheels should lock up.

If the wheels don't lock when off the ground, there's probably a trailer wiring problem.
If the wheels lock up off the ground, but don't provide much drag when the truck is pulling, you probably have grease contamination.
If the brakes work fine with the emergency breakaway unplugged, there's a wiring/connector/fuse problem at the truck, or at the 7 pin connection, or in the junction box under the pinbox.

Don't leave the emergency breakaway unplugged for more than a minute or two at a time.
 

Dahillbilly

Well-known member
some Chev & GMC trucks have problem with trailer brake message, check connections at box above the spare tire on truck. Been there.
 

Rawhide

Member
Thanks for the replies. I have a 2012 F250.
I’m going to try checking current at the pin and pulling the breakaway switch. But sometimes they work then a few minutes later they don’t.
 

LBR

Well-known member
You may have luck by spraying Caig De-oxit in the 7 way connectors following instructions on the can.

Every RVer should be equiped with this product IMO.
 

CoveredWagon

Well-known member
You may have luck by spraying Caig De-oxit in the 7 way connectors following instructions on the can.

Every RVer should be equiped with this product IMO.
I spray mine every time I connect. Can't be too safe. I know it's way overkill but so what. It's cheap
 

david-steph2018

Well-known member
I lost trailer brakes on the old Laredo. I took it to a camper place outside of Terre Haute, Ind. They determined it was the brake controller. Wrong, still had issue when we hooked up to leave the campground. So, after we got back to Ohio, I started checking and the issue was at the 4-pin flat plug for trailers. It was so corraded it was causing a short for the complete trailer braking system, including the 7-pin 5thwheel hookup.
 

LBR

Well-known member
I spray mine every time I connect. Can't be too safe. I know it's way overkill but so what. It's cheap
I know there are miracle sprays on the market, but I have never found one that would rival the good 'ole Radio Shack tuner cleaner of yester-year, decades ago.

We carry a 3.3K auxillary generator in the truck bed as we boondock a lot. It had started to give me fits...start, run, cough, sputter, die...and never consistently twice in a row. This went on for a couple months. I fought with EVERYTHING possible facet of that #_+/ under the sun. Just prior to tossing it in a dumpster, I sprayed all switches with De-oxIT and worked them 30-40 times.....now runs like a Swiss-made watch again.
 

rhodies1

Well-known member
Rawhide. , I owned a couple of Fords and here’s where you need to look at for your issue.
Climb under the rear bumper,disconnect the 7 pin plug wire harness from the back of the plug , you will most likely find it corroded at this junction point. Unbolt the plug from the bracket and dump the water out of the back of the plug,spray it with cleaner as well.This is a known problem with Ford,not knocking Ford but this is reality.
If you take your truck to a dealer ,this is what and where they will look first.
Good luck
 

wdk450

Well-known member
I know there are miracle sprays on the market, but I have never found one that would rival the good 'ole Radio Shack tuner cleaner of yester-year, decades ago.

We carry a 3.3K auxillary generator in the truck bed as we boondock a lot. It had started to give me fits...start, run, cough, sputter, die...and never consistently twice in a row. This went on for a couple months. I fought with EVERYTHING possible facet of that #_+/ under the sun. Just prior to tossing it in a dumpster, I sprayed all switches with De-oxIT and worked them 30-40 times.....now runs like a Swiss-made watch again.
Caig has had its products tested by major electronics manufacturers like Honeywell and H.P. During the motherboard computer days, H.P. did statistical analysis of warranty failures on units treated with DeOxIT and others not so treated. The warranty claims were about 1/2 for the DeOxIt treated units.

Read the Amazon reviews: https://www.amazon.com/CAIG-DeOxit-Cleaning-Solution-Spray/product-reviews/B0002BBV4G?pageNumber=2
Read Caig's own research and reports:https://caig.com/articles-reports/
 

wdk450

Well-known member
Best electrical cleaner I have used was called Trich 111. We used while I was in the Navy, it did a great job of cleaning.
1,1,1-TRICHLOROETHANE

I worked on old Model 28 Teletype equipments part of my time in the Navy. When i was in Germany, I ordered a 55 gallon drum of tricholoethane to dip clean the printers from all the excess lubricating oil. I noticed that the solvent made my arms come out white after dipping printers (remove the body oil in my skin from my arms), and the printer soon failed, as the oil impregnated in the oilite clutch shaft bearings was also removed. I was an E-4 with no direct supervision, didn't know better. Most of that 55 gallon drum was still there when I rotated out, Iwonder if they figured a way to dispose of this hazardous waste.

Trichlorethane is a marvelous grease remover, but read the Caig documents to see how their product removes oxides and improves contact conductivity: Oxidation/Contact Resistance test starts on page 7, Caig DeOxIt measurement results last on page 10. Here's a link to the document:

Finally, my best experience with DeOxIt was when I was working as a Medical Center Biomedical Equipment Tech, was called to the surgical pathology lab for a vent blower failure on a tissue processing station. A medical intern or resident works with tissue samples just harvested from an in-process surgery, looks for areas to be examined under the microscope, dissects and frozen micro shaves tissues for the pathologist to do a STAT decision on for the surgeon. The blower was to remove preservative solution and any possible airborne biohazard particles from the area under the hood where the masked and gowned tech was working. The rocker switch wasn't working, I didn't have another switch of the correct size and ratings on hand, and had to fix the switch. Fortunately, the rocker switch had holes in the side near the contacts so that I could get a small swiss file in and file on the contacts. I did that for a few seconds on both sets of contacts, then tried the switch/motor again. It worked 2 out of 10 tries. I then sprayed some DeOxIt in the contact access holes, worked the switch a few times, did one final spray, then set the system up for another test. The system worked 10 out of 10 tries, and got them going again.
I ordered a new switch overnight air and installed it the next day. BTW the blower was a medium sized squirrel cage driven by about a 1/2 hp Dayton motor, so it had a large start-up current surge to satisfy.
 

SLO

Well-known member
Rawhide, this question has been on multiple forums for a lot of years. There is no right answer to fix this and can be very frustrating. I had the problem on my 2012 Ram 3500 for at least two years. I would get the brake warning message but reconnect within 60 seconds or so. I couldn’t duplicate the problem so it was hard to diagnose. I tried all the things suggested above plus some more. Some several times. Finally took the most expensive route and replaced the oem brake controller. That fixed it. I usually follow the KISS principle but that didn’t work for me this time.


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