Trailer brake issue on 1 year old trailer

Came back from Mille Lacs to Minnetonka a week ago. While backing in to my driveway (slight incline) the surge brakes activated. The trailer has the electrical lock out when you put the truck in reverse which obviously wasn’t working. I pulled back out and put the “pin” in to prevent the brakes from activating and backed into the driveway. Felt the hubs and they were hot. Could only touch them for 3-4 seconds. I went in the house for a few minutes.

When I came back out to back the rig into the garage, I put on the parking lights which makes it easier to see when the trailer gets into the garage. When I put the truck in reverse, the marker lights went out. Put the truck in park and the marker lights came on. Put it in reverse, they went out. The back up lights on the truck work. Today, I checked all the fuses on the truck and they all looked good. Yes, I know there are separate fuses for the trailer.

I have to believe the disc brakes were dragging. I had checked the hubs 2 days earlier on another trip to Mille Lacs and they were fine. Tomorrow I will see if the electrical lock out is working and if not try a different 7 to 5 pin adapter. I will hook it up and tow it around to see if they heat up again.

Any other ideas on how to troubleshoot this? With the hubs heating up that much do I need to check the bearings and possibly repack them?

Any help is appreciated.

Check your electronic controller in the truck. Make sure thats set correctly, didn’t get bumped accidently. Bearings are a possibility but the trailer is only a year old so I question that. In the past I have found a large parking lot or a secluded road and just hit the brakes hard, sometimes things get lodged in there and that knocks it out.

On my Ranger trailer, the solenoid is deactivated by the reverse lights, it will operate the surge brakes if no reverse lights. The reverse wire from my 7-5 pin adapter broke once and I now carry a jumper wire with an alligator clip to clip on the solenoid and a small ring on the other end to put on one of the other 5 pins in case it happens again.

depending on the year of your truck,, if you have ONE light bulb out the back up circuit wont work to disengage the trailer brakes when you are trying to back it up.

Iowaboy1 wrote:

depending on the year of your truck,, if you have ONE light bulb out the back up circuit wont work to disengage the trailer brakes when you are trying to back it up.

This! Same thing happened to me last year, I had a tail light out

Dutchboy wrote:

Check your electronic controller in the truck. Make sure thats set correctly, didn’t get bumped accidently. Bearings are a possibility but the trailer is only a year old so I question that.

My 2015 Silverado does have a brake controller. Never had one before. How do I set it correctly?
I don’t think both bearings would fail at the same time when both were fine 2 days earlier. Stanger things have happened, though.

I’ll check the other lights. For backing up I can always manually lock out the brakes. I’m concerned as to why the hubs heated up. Still think the brakes were hanging up some.

On this Shorelandr trailer there is a tab under the actuator that you are supposed to push up on to assure the brakes are released. This is my first trailer with that. I am not in the habit of doing it but I will now. Maybe that was it.

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surge brake do not use a brake controller. The surge brakes use the trailers momentum and own weight, which pushes against a hydraulic cylinder when you step on the towing vehicle’s brakes. Therefore, a surge braking system does not require a brake controller to function.

Netguy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Dutchboy wrote:</div>
Check your electronic controller in the truck. Make sure thats set correctly, didn’t get bumped accidently. Bearings are a possibility but the trailer is only a year old so I question that.

My 2015 Silverado does have a brake controller. Never had one before. How do I set it correctly?
I don’t think both bearings would fail at the same time when both were fine 2 days earlier. Stanger things have happened, though.

I’ll check the other lights. For backing up I can always manually lock out the brakes. I’m concerned as to why the hubs heated up. Still think the brakes were hanging up some.

On this Shorelandr trailer there is a tab under the actuator that you are supposed to push up on to assure the brakes are released. This is my first trailer with that. I am not in the habit of doing it but I will now. Maybe that was it.

I believe that tab is to ensure the emergency brake/fail safe hasn’t been activated on the trailer. You should have a cable that comes out of the trailer tongue/brake actuator that hooks up to your truck hitch right? Not the big pair with hooks, but a smaller cable (still probably with a hook).

That’s in the event the trailer comes unhooked from your truck at speed, if that cable pulls tight, it means the trailer is about to hurdle off on the highway uncontrolled. That activates the surge brakes so the trailer hopefully stops on it’s own fairly quickly instead of barreling into oncoming traffic at 60 mph.

The tab is pushed just to ensure the emergency brake thing is released. It used to be a much bigger pain to release that emergency switch before they added those tabs(don’t ask me how I know).

I think you’d notice while driving if your trailer had its brakes activated, the tires would likely skid as you tried to move and you’d feel way more resistance than normal. It would definitely heat up your hubs but I’d expect a lot of wear on the tires if that’s what was happening.

Did the parking lights go out on just the trailer when in reverse? If that is what happened, it could be a grounding issue on the trailer

I have checked all the light bulbs and they are working. The reverse lockout not working was due to the 7 pin to 5 pin adaptor working loose.

I took the boat/trailer for a test drive and checked the hubs. They were fine. Did some quicker stops and starts and returned home. Hubs were hot. I took the floor jack and jacked up each trailer wheel and each were not turning easily. The brakes were hanging up on each wheel. In this condition I could not put the manual lock out in place because there wasn’t enough room. The trailer was pushed forward some to activate the brakes. I had to accelerate quickly to release the brakes, then I could put the manual lockout in place.

I took it fishing yesterday (7 mile drive) with the manual lockout in place. Checked the hubs when I got home. Both were fine. Jacked up each wheel and they turned easily.

2 questions:

1. How dangerous is it if I used the manual lockout on a several 100 mile trip? I know I would not have trailer brakes. The tow vehicle is a 2015 Silverado 1500.

2. Where do I take it to get it fixed? My dealer or auto mechanic or?

I wouldn’t risk using the manual lockout, it’s meant for emergency only

Had this happen to me when I purchased my WX2200. Called dealer, he said to check the truck receptacle where your round trailer plug goes in. Didn’t think it could be that as I had just got a new truck also. I did notice that the plug was quite loose when inserting. Also as my trailer has back up lights that shine quite bright, I had my wife put the truck in reverse with her foot on the brakes, and if I wiggled the plug, the backup lights would go on and off. Simple fix was to bend the prongs outward slightly on the truck trailer plug receptacle. Plug inserted much tighter and brakes and backup light always work.

Forgot to say what boat I have: 1875 ProGuide.

Mine does this once in a while due to the plug making poor contact at the truck. I bend the prongs out to snug it up

I had my trailer do something similar. Backing it up my driveway would activate the trailer brakes. Cause was somehow the E-brake cable for the trailer was pulled, breaking the little ‘C’ clip that holds the cable. Once I replaced the ‘C’ clip on the cable (with some zip tie reinforcement to keep it from happening again), I am back to trailer working properly.

Netguy wrote:

2 questions:

1. How dangerous is it if I used the manual lockout on a several 100 mile trip? I know I would not have trailer brakes. The tow vehicle is a 2015 Silverado 1500.

2. Where do I take it to get it fixed? My dealer or auto mechanic or?

1. Not a great idea. It’s definitely doable, you can drive really careful, etc. But if the crap hits the fan you’re going to want those surge brakes. Also, I did just this for about 3 weeks back when I first bought my used Ranger Reata. Trailer needed a new master brake cylinder, but one repair shop said, “just drive it how it is until you can get it fixed.”

Well, when I went to get the master cylinder put in, it wouldn’t fit anymore. The constant slamming of the ball into the master cylinder bent something inside the trailer tongue, so I was SOL. Had to order a whole new tongue assembly from Ranger and have it express shipped so I could get it put on in time for my canada trip.

That couple weeks of driving cost me about $800 in parts/labor to get fixed, ouch.

2. You can call around to some auto shops. I ended up getting help at ‘The Metal Doctor’ in Hugo, which is like a welding shop. If you know a good mechanic(like not the dealership, but a dude who runs a shop out of his garage or something), ask them. I’ve found a lot of good recommendations from my mechanic as he interacts with body shops, metal shops, parts dealers, etc.

Update on my trailer brakes:

My old trailer had drum brakes and never ran hot unless something was wrong with the bearings. My new trailer has disc brakes and runs hot at times.

I called the manufacturer of the brakes and this is what I found out:
-Disc brakes run hotter than drum brakes. They can run almost as hot as the front brakes on the tow vehicle.
-She asked if both wheels are running hot. I said, yes. She said it could be: 1) the piston isn’t releasing all the way, 2) on an older swing tongue trailer (mine is less than 1 ½ years old) the inside of the “flexible” hose can break down and result in a smaller diameter for the brake fluid to flow through. The brakes work OK because the fluid is under pressure but it takes longer for the fluid to flow back to the reservoir so the brakes are engaged longer.
– When I back into the driveway, jacked up the trailer and turned both wheels, both had some brake activation. She said this is because the electric brake lock out opens a solenoid to let the brake fluid back into the reservoir but still compresses the piston some. After backing a trailer with the electric lock out in use the last movement of the trailer should be forward to take the pressure off the piston.

I bought an infrared thermometer and drove the trailer 10-15 miles. The temps of the trailer rotors were ~120 degrees which was 70 degrees less than the truck’s front wheel rotor. Went to a lake last Friday that was 100 miles away and took the same measurements a few times and the trailer rotors were 110-130 degrees, 60-70 degrees less than truck’s front rotor.

So on the day I couldn’t keep my hand on the trailer hub, the air temp was 93 degrees plus driving in traffic on the way home could easily get the hubs to around 140 degrees or more, which is the temp when you can’t hold onto it. (I Googled this).

So it looks like my trailer brakes are working properly.

I am going to cut a gap in a shelf at the back of my garage so I don’t have to use the swing tongue. In cold temps I have trouble getting the clevis pin in the bottom hole because they don’t line up very well. My dealer said all Shorelandr trailers are like that.

I learned a lot from this thread, thanks for sharing!