Never attempt repairs you are uncomfortable performing. You will not be able to enjoy your travel trailer if you are injured performing a repair. PLEASE have a qualified shop do any repairs that pose a risk to your well-being. There is no shame in having others do maintenance on your travel trailer. Please be safe!
It’s a mystery to me why my trailer didn’t have self adjusting brakes on it directly from the factory. The cost difference to install them over manual adjusting breaks in almost nothing.
Unless you have repacked your bearings (or you were informed by the manufacturer); you probably won’t know if you have self adjusting brakes. Look at the picture below from etrailer.com to understand the difference. I have repacked my bearings many times so I know for a fact that my brakes need to be adjusted manually.
I’m not new to adjusting brakes manually. My 1966 VW Beetle has brakes that are adjusted manually. I have had way too much experience playing with those. If you have a classic car, unless you have converted it to disk brakes, you know what I am talking about. Click here to read a post I made regarding what the VW Beetle taught me about my travel trailer.
I plan on moving to self-adjusting brakes next year for the travel trailer. However, I need to adjust my brakes before our next trip. I probably should have done that when I had the trailer jacked up doing bearing maintenance a few months ago. However, in my defense, it was triple digit weather at the time. I just didn’t want to spend anymore time in that heat. Things have cooled off slightly since then. We are now in the low 90’s, with the overnight temperatures in the upper 60’s. So, crawling around under the trailer in the 60’s or even 70’s is a welcome relief.
I will say that the trailer brakes are much easier to adjust than the beetle. With the trailer you only have one adjusting star to deal with. The Beetle has two adjusting stars, and it’s a pain. I recently replaced my master cylinder as well as my brake fluid reservoir, and there was nothing entertaining about it. In fact, it took so long to get everything completed that my buddy Scott said my 66 was “Garage Art”. Don’t worry, none of what I am going to describe for travel trailer brakes will take more than perhaps five minutes a wheel.
Having just crawled out from under my travel trailer I can report, and am embarrassed to admit, that my brakes were way out of adjustment. I should have done this long ago. As I mentioned, the procedure is super easy, even for an old codger like me.
Before we start, let talk briefly about how these electric brakes work. The brakes are comprised of brake shoes, and a magnet connected to an actuating arm. When electricity is applied via the brake controller, the magnet connects to the brake drum. The magnet moves the actuating arm which in turn pushes the brake shoes against the drum. If your brakes are out of adjustment, even though the actuating arm is moving the brake shoes, they may not be contacting the brake drum. Thus, you have little or no braking power.
As a side note, in the case of self adjusting brakes, there is a lever that pushes on the adjusting star when you brake. If there is clearance (between the brake drum and the brake shoe) for the star to be adjusted, the lever will make that change.
Here are the steps for manual adjustment:
Jack up the trailer so you are able to rotate the tires freely. Always follow your manufacturers jacking procedures. I only jack my trailer on the frame, close to the spring hangers. In addition I use Safe Jack, you can read about that product by clicking here.
Remove the plug on the bottom (at the rear) of your wheel drum. You may have two of these plugs but the adjusting star will only be behind one of them.
Next, locate your adjusting star inside the hole.
Spin your wheel while using a screw driver to push that adjusting star upwards. You can buy a brake star adjusting tool for around $15.00 but I have never had problems using a flat blade screwdriver.
Keep adjusting the star upward while spinning the tire until the tire is hard to rotate. Don’t be surprised if it takes a number of rotations upward to get resistance.
Next back off the tension by pushing the star downward until just a light amount of resistance is felt as you spin the tire. You will hear a slight dragging sound of the brake shoes against the drum. Remember you only need a slight drag on the wheel.
Put your plug back in the drum and move to the next wheel.
When you have completed your brake adjustments you will want to turn the gain down on your brake controller, so your wheels do not lock up when applying the brakes. Then adjust your brakes for optimal braking.
Now as with everything there are multiple videos on YouTube that walk you through a manual brake adjustment. I always advise watching more than one video because sometimes folks make videos and they give bad advice or miss a step in the process.
The recommended interval for adjusting your brakes is every 3000 miles. I think that is reasonable and probably a good reason to go with self adjusting brakes if you travel a lot. Also remember, your not just doing this for yourself; you are doing it for everyone that travels on the roadway along side of you.
Tammy and I have a trip coming up in about a week. I am expecting that between this adjustment and the repair to the brake wires (click here to read that), we should be in good shape. However, I will be testing them to make sure before we get on the highway.
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