[SEL] OT Electric trailer brakes

[Bruce Younger]

Lew, Elden may be onto something.  Do check the wiring well.  10 V is a little shy, but should work.  I've seen four wheel brake wiring from 16 ga on up; given a choice I run 12 ga.  Having 10V at the supply to the magnet doesn't mean much if the ground is bad; check the ground thoroughly.  Here's what caught me a year ago:  The wiring ran from the street side of the trailer to the curb side through the axle tube.  Some of the wiring had abraded the insulation enough to leak voltage to ground, thus causing the brakes to be very weak.  If your wiring works that way, the easiest thing to do is just cut it off and run new wires on the outside of the tube and zip-strip them in place.  You can put them inside a loom if you think you need to.  Also, use good connectors, not wire nuts.  Look at wwgrainger part # 4FE24.  I've had some in service for three years on the bottom side of our fifth wheel covering over 20K miles, without a failure.

Bruce Younger   

05G HHC 313 RR Bn 3/67-4/68   

Madison, SD  

sluggo54 at hotmail.com   



"There is no hunting like the hunting of a man and those that have hunted   
armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."   

E. Hemingway




_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail® has a new way to see what's up with your friends.
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_WhatsNew1_052009