12"elec brake locking up on off side
Submitted: Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 20:53
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Member - Malcolm (Townsville)
I just fitted a brand new 3 tonne axle with 12 "electric brakes (
Melbourne drum) under my caravan. ATM is now 2500kg.
When I left TSV I was getting 16.6 l/100km (it was raining and I never noticed any hot drums). I stayed at Palmwoods (Sunshine Coast) for a couple of days and had a dream run to the NSW border @ 13.3 l/100km. After pulling into a
truck stop I noticed the hot drum and talked to the NRMA mechanic just south of
Ballina. He advised me to go back to
Ballina where they have parts available.
Forward and onward I went to
Coffs Harbour - booked the van into a caravan repair place - where they removed the drum, replaced the oil seal (which had a problem) repacked the bearings, cleaned brake shoes with white spirits and put it all back together. As I drove off he checked the brakes on that wheel were releasing properly.
OK. This afternoon, I get to cross the Gibraltar Ranges between
Grafton and Glen Innes that same wheel the drum is getting so hot you can't touch it - the other side is not a problem. It was raining and I could see the steam coming off the wheel. My fuel was ~17.2 l/100km.
In the morning I'm going to back off the bearing nut a quarter of a turn and give that a go.
Would appreciate any advice from anybody that has experienced similar problems .... and do they have a solution.
TIA
mal
Reply By: Members - Bow & Nan - Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 21:53
Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 21:53
Mal
First check to see if the brake is not adjusted up to tight
AnswerID:
433935
Follow Up By: Member - Malcolm (Townsville) - Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 21:59
Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 21:59
Good point Bow & Nan
When I arrived at CH I parked the van overnight and next day jacked the wheel up to see if the brakes were binding. It was spinning as free as .....
Tomorrow I'll try it with the car all hooked up.
BTW I am using a Prodigy P2 controller
Mal
FollowupID:
704946
Follow Up By: V8 Troopie - Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 22:52
Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 22:52
But is it spinning freely when a load is on the wheel? perhaps your
parking brake locks up the brake shoes when the wheel is loaded?
FollowupID:
704947
Follow Up By: Roughasguts - Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 23:26
Friday, Oct 22, 2010 at 23:26
Is the wheel still spinning freely after a few
miles, EG after the brakes get warm?
The other thing is how tight is your hand brake cable, they need a fair bit of slack in them.
Cheers.
FollowupID:
704951
Follow Up By: Member - Malcolm (Townsville) - Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:22
Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:22
I loosened off the cable (about half inch) but made no difference.
I loosened the wheel bearing two castalations but changed my mind after jacking the wheel up and feeling how much slop was there. Put it back to the same setting done by the caravan place - just a slight movement when rocking the wheel. Still no difference.
At Inverell I adjusted the bearing again - this time I TIGHTENED it one more castallation so there was NO MOVEMENT when rocking the wheel top/bottom and it was still spinning OK.
Coming down a steep
hill I manually used my prodigy and the O/S wheel kept locking up BUT ...... Now the drum is NOT getting hot.
Yesterday, I was actually getting 13.5 l/100km at one stage. Today I averaged about 14.2 so consider the problem solved.
One thing to remember (for others reading this thread) this axle is NOT YOUR STANDARD CARAVAN SETUP. The axle is 60mm round rated at 3000kg and the bearings are not your normal holden/ford stuff (not even the heavy duty parallel bearings) these are rated at 3000kg - the inner bearing is about twice the size of the outer bearing. Since found out that some of these bearings are tightened with a torque wrench to pre-load the bearing.
Currently sitting in
Bourke waiting for the road to dry out on the way to
Tibooburra - stopped to smell the roses. LOL.
Mal
FollowupID:
705086
Reply By: Member - Bucky - Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 05:57
Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 05:57
Malcom
I have has a few issues with the electric brakes on our camper trailer. especially since I went to the Prodigy, on the Patrol....I never can get the electric brakes as good as I did on the Navara, which had a Voyager controller.
For what it is worth, I would disconnect the electric brake side of the plug... Usually the blue wire in the plug (also markes service brake) and take it for a drive.
Do you have bump brakes ?.... activate them and this would add a safety factor, and eliminate the mechanical side of things.
Cheers
Bucky
AnswerID:
433950
Follow Up By: Ray - Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 08:36
Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 08:36
Can't be the controller or all four
wheels would be effected
FollowupID:
704967
Follow Up By: Member - Malcolm (Townsville) - Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:08
Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:08
ray, it only has TWO
wheels. It is only the off-side wheel affected.
FollowupID:
705084
Reply By: Sigmund - Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 09:46
Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 09:46
Last trip one side of the CT lekky brakes was generating a lot of heat; the other was cold. Turned out that the connection to the cold side had failed and the shoes weren't activating so all the power was being concentrated on the other side.
AnswerID:
433960
Reply By: MEMBER - Darian, SA - Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 18:59
Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 at 18:59
For what it is worth, I recently had one 'quite warm to hot' hub on my 4 wheel offroad van (HD hubs - ind.
suspension 12" brakes -
Melbourne Trailers hardware)...... the outer drum was cool while the centre was hot, so had to be the bearing - I pulled the pin and backed the castle nut off half-a-notch....... that was all that was required to make a noticeable difference ....... vans are new to me, but when doing hubs on my HD camper trailer a few years back, I always adjusted them to have the tiniest amount of 'play'..... and they always ran cool...... having no play might be the wrong thing on vans too ?
AnswerID:
433986
Follow Up By: Member - Malcolm (Townsville) - Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:28
Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:28
Same hardware as
mine Darian. See my reply further up this thread. Maybe yours had been done too tight and
mine too loose.
Noraml trailer stuff I always adjust same as you.
Real learning experience for me these 3000kg setups.
Mal
FollowupID:
705087
Reply By: Member - Carl- Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 07:45
Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 07:45
Hi
Malcolm,
Heard of this before. It relates to the wiring of the brakes. What they do is run the wire to one brake, then the next and so on in a ciriuit. For some reason this means brake number 1 get more power than 2 and then 3 etc. For this reason the magnet activated stronger and this relates to the increase in heat. It will cause them to wear unevenly as
well.
This is not really a lodigical thing but it happens. They should be wired directly from the power source to all 4 brakes individually. This is harder to do and takes more time.
Wait a second, a person getting paid on the basis of time fitted them? They just did the quickest way of doing it. Follow the wiring and see if the heating brake is the first one on the circuit. You might like to look at thicker wiring as
well.
AnswerID:
434030
Follow Up By: Member - Malcolm (Townsville) - Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:30
Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 14:30
Thanks for the reply Carl.
I'd like to hear what an auto electrician has to say about that one. Having said that,
mine is wired in sequence. (Hot one first LOL).
Mal
FollowupID:
705088
Reply By: blown4by - Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 16:33
Sunday, Oct 24, 2010 at 16:33
When you get home replace the brake linings/pads. Once they become impregnated with oil or grease you cannot effectively remove it all with white spirt, Brake Kleen or any other product including an oxy torch. What happens when they get hot is that the lubricant comes out of the pores in the lining material reducing the braking effectiveness which in a crash stop you need every bit of braking power available to you.
AnswerID:
434079