General Trailer Brake Question / Observation

[K_N_L]

While checking on the brakes and repacking the bearings on my TH yesterday I noticed that the left (driver) side brake drums had considerable more brake dust than the right side. All of my seals looked fine but again there was more dust to clean off on the driver side. None of the pads looked bad and there were no other issues for which I was happy to see. My thought was that with the electrical control wires first going the left side and then traversing the axle to the right side, I was wondering if one side is braking harder than the other due to voltage drop or something else. Again no issues to report with towing but figured I would throw it out to the other techy guys as to what they have run across over the years. Thank folks!

[chuckster57]

Interesting observation. Can’t say I’ve ever noticed more dust on the “lead” side. When LCI has a run of failed seals I noticed they were almost exclusively on the curb side.

If this is the first time you’ve taken the drums off it could be simply a case of the person on that side at the plant set the brakes tighter.

[K_N_L]

Maybe so, this was my second time through the bearings (I aim for every year but missed 2019). Only reason I noted it was because I did the curb side first and it was a bit dusty, and then on the driver side when I put the hub down on the ground a considerable amount of dust puddled in the drum. And there was a bit more dust build up on the spindle as well. Neither side was dragging during spinning and I didnt measure the pads but they were all pretty close. Thanks!

[ChuckS]

The main 12vdc power source for your trailer brakes is a single feed wire and then the four separate trailer magnets are branched off in “parallel” feed... if all connections are mechanically sound then each brake magnet will draw the same amperage when activated

[K_N_L]

Cool, thanks. I figured that they should be setup in parallel but I didn’t trace any of the wiring, just saw the wires come out from under the coroplast and cross the axle.

[sourdough]

To me, simply thinking, the dust comes from either wear from the pads/drums or literal dust. If the pads look worn the same and the drums look the same I would just clean them up and go have fun.

[LewisB]

I didn't see anything about brake adjustments...do your brakes have the "forward self adjusters"? If so, are they operating correctly? If they are manually adjusted, maybe one side is simply set tighter than the other. Seems like adjustment needs to be part of the equation...

[flybouy]

Do you have a habit of dropping off road surface on the right side? If you drop off to an unpaved shoulder there would be a lot of dust/dirt kicked up. Just a thought.

[K_N_L]

I didnt move/spread the adjusters manually to see if they were froze up. It does have the self adjuster that uses the cable to ratchet it out as needed. I try 99.999% of the time not to drop off the the road too! Honestly if it had not been 95 degrees out and 3000% humidity, I would have gone back to the other side to check.