weak brakes. Help needed anyone.

[09grizzly1]

bignugget.

If you have the quick connectors hooking the magnet wires to the brake harness wires, you might want to replace them with a soldered connection. I had the same amp and voltage results as you on my 3500 lbs axles. After I soldered all the connections the braking effort was considerably better. The final thing I did was replace the 10x 1 3/4" Alco brakes with the standard 10 x 2 1/4" brakes. I went from 9 down to 5 on the brake controller and can now lock the brakes up at the full setting on the controller. Did you replace the brakes with 8000lb ones?

09grizzly1

[mber]

I replaced my whole brake assemblies to dexter high performance brakes. From what I read, the dexter high performance brake assemblies are rated for 3500lbs axles. The brake pads are harder then the regular Alco 3000lbs brake assembly pads. The braking is a lot better but not to the point that I could lower the gain on the brake assembly. It still at 9 but at least I can fell the trailer stop. My braking distance has also been greatly reduce. I'm now confident that I could stop on a dime of I need to.

The brake pads in my axles have always been 10 X 2 1/4" size.

I did the soldering of all wire. I even pulled bigger wires to the brakes. The biggest bang for my money was replacing the brake assembly with high performance brakes from dexter axle.

Also, adjustment of the brake pads are crucial. The pads really need to be as close as possible to the drum. This becomes hard to judge when the brake pads are new as there maybe high point on the pad or drum which may throw out your attempts to adjust the brakes until the brakes and drum are seated/worn in. It took my quite a while to get the pad and drum to seat well. During that time, I had to adjust the pad just slightly closer to the drum until the high spots were gone.

I use a laser thermometer to insure the brake pad are not dragging put were close enough to give me good braking power.

Hope this helps