Electric drum brakes on camper NOT working - Ideas needed please

Could be the shoes need adjusting, there is a small slot in the back of the hub where you adjust the shoes in or out. Jack one wheel up and give it a spin and get some one to hit the brake and see if the wheel stops. If the magnet is working and the wheel does not stop adjust the shoes.

What brake controller do you have?

have you tried removing a hub from the van and testing the magnet with the car hooked up?

Hope that came out correct ;-)

Basically you need to see if the entire circuit is working when hooked up - if the magnet fails to work then you know it's a wiring or controller fault, if it works then you know it's an adjustment or brake pad installation fault.

Problem is that when you test the controller without a load connected such as the van you may be getting a false reading due to a bad connection that becomes an open circuit under load, this can be either in the brake wiring or even a bad earth in the trailer wiring.

Hope that will be of some help

Regards
Peter Richens - VK4FSD

Hi , you should get about 2.5 amps at each brake magnet. If it's a jayco outback then it would have alko off road magnets in the drums. Also if the hubs have been machined then it would take a little while to bed in. These drums have brake lining plus the wall gets machined where the magnet sticks to..
What tow car is it, wouldn't happen to be a prado?

I have just been through the same thing with a brand new axle, Alko off-road not working properly. Firstly hook up the camper, place controller on full load and operate brakes. Get close to one of the campers wheels, you should be able to hear the magnets groan when power is applied.. If no unplug the camper andcheck if you are getting 12 volts from the 7 pin plug on the vehicle. Find a good earth spot on the towbar, or better still, the chassis and check all the pins for power, i think it is pin 3.. """dont mistake voltage from the brake pin""" If you have 12 volts then the controller is working, back the load off the controller and see if the voltage goes down proportionally. If ok then the problem is in the camper. Plug the camper in again and check for power where the magnets are joined to the trailer wiring under the camper. Operate the controller on full load and check one of the wire that go to the magnets with the multimeter and the other to a good earth.. if you have power and you can hear some noise when the brakes are applied, then the basic system is ok.
My problem was that i was getting some braking but the brakes would not lock up when on full load and would only work very slightly when warmed up. I assumed it was a bad earth so i drilled and tapped an small hole in the tie down tab(transportation tie down point) on the chassis near the towbar, cleaned the area around it and crimped and soldered a round terminal and tightened firm and i ran a new earth wire into the back of the 7pin flat plug on the vehicle and into the earth pin. I now have brakes!!!!!! If you decide to add an additional earth, go direct to chassis rather that the towbar, there may be corrosion between the towbar and the chassis. Before i fixed the problem with the with the earth wire, the magnets were drawing 5.4 Amps so it really looked like all was ok but on full load they should draw around 3.5 amps each from memory. Another thing if you disconnected the magnets wiring, check that the magnets are wired in parallel and not in series, so they are both getting the controller voltage and not half of it. Also check both 7pin flat plug and socket to ensure all the wires are tight. Hope this helps,, regards Michael

Hi Kylie,If the magnets are not totally flat, ie if they are chamfered on the outer edges this causes poor braking. the magnets contact the drum on its vertical face, and if they are worn and not in full contact on their total surface, braking is affected. You should be able to hear the magnets buzzing when the brakes are on and the van is stationery, The wheel should rotate about 1.5 turns max when properly adjusted. Regards Keith

OK! Does it need a secondary earth connected to the vehicles earth pin in the 7 pin flat socket back to the chassis of the vehicle as i mentioned.. As mentioned above, the earth may be undersize and connected to somewhere , where it does not give you a complete earth.. At least at the moment you can use with some braking power.. Keep onto it, they should lock on full power.. Michael

Kylie,
You have had lots of good suggestions but it seems that things are still not as good as you would like.

A friend of mine once took his trailer hubs & brakes all apart to do a major rennovation and fix up rusty areas etc. After reassembly his brakes just did not work well. It eventually turned out that he had put the backing plates on the wrong sides. Drum brakes tend to use the rotation of the wheel to pull the shoes on and if they are on the wrong side they don't work well.

Do not know if this would be possible on yours or if you removed the backing plates, probably not. Just a thought in case you did.

cheers

adjust brakes to they lock up then back OFF ten click
they are not the same as a car, people do them wrong

I have the Eagle outback and had had 2 different brake controllers over the years. The Tesko one and others I know of will not lock the brakes via manual slide no matter what you try. You need to get on a dirt road firstly and have a play doing some serious lock ups ( turn ABS off if you can ). You will be able to see the trailer skid marks. I would then be confident it will do its job on the tar.

I have the Eagle outback and had had 2 different brake controllers over the years. The Tesko one and others I know of will not lock the brakes via manual slide no matter what you try. You need to get on a dirt road firstly and have a play doing some serious lock ups ( turn ABS off if you can ). You will be able to see the trailer skid marks. I would then be confident it will do its job on the tar.

Thanks to you all for taking the time and effort to share your ideas with me.

I have taken the camper and car to a local caravan and trailer service place and had them test it.
They gave it the thumbs up.
Although the wheels dont lock on the camper, the trailer does brake.
As some have mentioned, not all wheels will lock and I guess mine is just one of them.

Michael, SS-SS, Snoopyone & others - thanks again, much appreciated!!

Kylie