Trailer brake gain (OR: I almost killed a man yesterday)

[AKC]

OK I'm going to change the "effort" from low to med and see what that does. And leave the gain at 6.5.

[Mike134]

Originally Posted by AKC

How do I feel if the trailer tires are turning freely (this is one of those "feel" things I have problems with)? And if I came to a dead stop from 40 mph the other night in a very short distance, with no problems, can I just assume that I'm good?

There lies the problem with internet "well meaning" advise. Your combo stopped very well when you needed it to so it's quite possible that's the best it will ever be adjusted.

But searching for answers now gets you 20+ opinions.

Take my rig it's a Ford so I have low med high settings plus the gain adjustment.

I'm set at 10 on medium. I saw a post saying if that's the case you should change to high and lower the gain WHY???

It works fine why change? Because someone I have no idea about made a posting on the internet?

rant over. I like some of the advice I see on the internet other stuff not so much.

[mnoland30]

On another point: If you're trailer brakes smelled at the bottom of the hill, you were probably using your brakes too much. On long hills, you want to downshift prior to starting down the hill and let the engine do most of the braking for you. Ideally, you can make it to the bottom of the hill without using the brakes. Long sustained braking on a hill will overheat your brakes, which makes them less effective, and wears them out sooner than necessary. Use the brakes if you need them, but don't drive with your foot on the brake all the way down the hill.

As my night vision has dimmed with age, I'm amazed that younger people have no idea older people are nearly blind at night. They wear dark clothes and assume you see them. I don't.

When I was young, I had a drunk step out in front of me. I locked up the brakes just for the audio effect. He sobered up quickly.

[jimmoore13]

I'm sure I'm repeating others, but the entire thread is very long...so here goes:

1) You need to use your gears, and if you have a diesel, your exhaust brake, to control speed on long downhills. Brakes are for OCCASIONAL use and for emergency stopping. On a gasser, engine backpressure, and on a diesel, the exhaust brake with engine exhaust pressure....combined with proper choice of gears...is how to control downhill speed. If your brakes smell at the bottom of a hill, you have ABUSED your brakes, and they would be useless in an emergency. Your brakes should NEVER stink unless you've screwed up and gone into a downhill too fast.

2) Set your brake controller in a large, empty parking lot or empty stretch of road. An emergency stop should include incipient lockup, or even a slight bit of lockup, on ALL tires. You can modulate lockup in an emergency stop.

3) Some, not all, brake controllers accept adjustment commands ONLY when you are applying brake pressure. Mine works that way. Apply the brake and adjust, release the brake then test how well the adjustment works. Test until your TV brakes and trailer brakes cause the TV and trailer tires to squeal or howl during an emergency stop. Premature lockup is just as bad or worse than too little braking force, but the only safe setting is "right"...all brakes working together at max when you need it.

If you can't figure out the right setting, then get help. This isn't guesswork based on brake controller numbers. It requires testing and matching the braking performance of the TV and the trailer.

[emm-dee]

When I had the Cummins Ram and a 9500 lb trailer I had a long conversation with a Ram factory rep about the factory control system. He said the light/heavy selections referred to the trailer being heavier or lighter than the truck. It had four settings...light or heavy with electric brakes and light or heavy with hydraulic brakes. The difference between electric and hydraulic settings were the speed at which the electric was applied. The amount of voltage was determined by the position of the brake pedal.

IIRC, when I had the electric brakes (if you could really call them brakes) I got better performance using the hydraulic setting at 8.0 strength. After installing the hydraulic disc brakes the new setting was 4.0...just enough to lock up the brakes on gravel but not on pavement. At that setting if I just barely pushed the brake pedal I could feel a slight pull from the trailer.

It took a lot of experimenting to come up with the best performance. BTW..strongly recommend the disc setup. It is hard to describe how much better they are than the electric drum brakes.

[Chuck_S]

Ford brake controller is set to just below the wheel lock point at 25mph. Not sure what "your" brake controller is or does but Ford's is not set with your foot on the brake.

-- Chuck

[Wolf26]

First of all, all of you guys that are recommending one setting or another for someone else is nothing less than irresponsible and dangerous!! The best advice that was given was on how to properly go about setting up your brakes from scratch. I have had several trucks and they all are different.

[ThruHiker]

Originally Posted by AKC

OK I'm going to change the "effort" from low to med and see what that does. And leave the gain at 6.5.

That will probably help a lot. It took me 500 miles of towing before I found that stupid "Low Med High" setting... and scaring me every time I hit a steep downgrade on I81! Trailer kept pushing the truck, and as you can see, I don't have a small truck. If you have to, don't be afraid to push the setting to "High." I towed through CO, WY, ID, MT last year on High and no problems.

[AKC]

Originally Posted by emm-dee

He said the light/heavy selections referred to the trailer being heavier or lighter than the truck. It had four settings...light or heavy with electric brakes and light or heavy with hydraulic brakes. The difference between electric and hydraulic settings were the speed at which the electric was applied. The amount of voltage was determined by the position of the brake pedal.

That makes a lot of sense. So I will leave it on light when the trailer is empty and move to medium when it's loaded.

[1100mike]

Originally Posted by AKC

That makes a lot of sense. So I will leave it on light when the trailer is empty and move to medium when it's loaded.

I'd leave it on med full time. Probably not 15% difference between loaded and empty.

[lbrjet]

You have been given instructions on how to properly set your gain. Why you are still guessing at it is beyond me.

[Beauty and Beast]

What JTOWNSTUMPJUMPER said.
Start rolling and pull on the manual brakes for trailer only you will feel if they are pulling on or not.
Same way I checked my trailer brakes when pulling tractor trailer only the tractor trailer has no gain control, It is all manual.
You will get the hang of it rather quickly.

[Chuck_S]

Instructions for the Ford factory brake controller were posted a day or so ago. This ain't the procedure.

-- Chuck

[Mike134]

to sum it all up "we are not experts, but we play one when online"

[NJKris]

Which is why I prefer when someone quotes an actual owner's manual or manufacturer instructions. Veracity of information is assumed to be correct.

[bbells]

Sorry kiddo, but most of the posts about feeling it are for trailer brakes that are not working with a brake controller that is integrated into the tow vehicle. I just drive down a flat road with the brakes set on minimum. Then set them half way. If I don't need less brake travel I set them halfway to max. Then to max. FYI: If you have a fast stop the integrated controllers will always apply more brakes than you expect.

[KnP]

Originally Posted by AKC

After reading through responses to one of my posts, and reading through some other posts, I realized that my trailer gain was set way too high. It was set at 9.5 when I got it, and while I had read some tests to do to know if that was correct, they all seemed to involve a level of "feel" that I don't possess. So I reset it to 6.5 as a seemingly more appropriate number. Braking is not as crisp as it was, but overall seems fine.

Quick facts: 2017 F-250, gas, towing package. Trailer is a double-axle BP style and at the time of the incident I'm about to describe probably weighed about 4500 pounds (it was not quite empty).

I don't like driving in the dark, but I had no choice yesterday. It was completely dark. I was on the highway feeder road going 40 mph. And this person just about walked right out in front of me. He walked out into, and the started to walk out of (toward me) my lane, and the apparently saw me (how could he not see me? you can't miss my rig) and stopped. He had dark skin and was wearing dark clothes, and I didn't see him until it was almost too late. I SLAMMED on the brakes. I stopped within maybe 4-5 feet of him. I don't think I had that long to stop, so the rig seemed to come to a stop pretty quickly. No locking tires, no squealing brakes, no bad smell. So this suggests that the gain is OK, doesn't it?

Also I went down the very big steep hill again today, the one where when I've gone down it in the past the trailer brakes have smelled when I got to the bottom. This time I was using t/h mode and had the gain to 6.5 I wasn't entirely overjoyed with the way t/h performed, but I definitely was braking less, and the tires didn't smell at the end of it.

Like I said, it seems to me from reading descriptions of how to know if your trailer gain is correct, they require some level of feel that I don't posses. I will be honest: I am a woman, my daily driver is a Civic, and I'm not really into cars (although I have grown to REALLY like my truck, 15 mpg or not); and people's descriptions of how things should feel if it's correct go over my head.

So the point of all of this is to ask -- does it sound like my trailer brake gain is now set at a reasonable place?

Here is some that the setting is "depends".

How I set mine...

On Hwy Speeds I set mine to about at about a 6. On city drive to about 9. That is with optimal road conditions, dry, sunny, nice pavement. When is raining Drop to about a 5 on Hwy. Why is that, is because I do not feel comfy having the trailer to skid and T Bone the rig. On Icy roads, I throw it to the lowest settings and drive much slower. The feel I try to find is like someone is tugging my tail. I drive with the feel on my hips and legs. Is kind of hard to describe but the seat gives a lot of feedback if you "listen" to it. I do not have a nunber rule, just set according to conditions and what the "seat" tells me.

Is like the feedback from the steering wheel. You can feel the bumps and irregularities of the road, you know were the front tires are riding. The seat is the same. If you trailer pushes you, you feel the force on the seat that pushes yoi fwd, same as draging, you feel like there is an external force wagging your tail.


Oh well, those are my 2 cents

[mixerman]

It's more of a seeing thing. If you have your setting on lets day 8.0 and do the 25mph test and your tires skid, back it off to 7 and do the same test. Keep doing it until your tires don't lock up. Then you have the right setting. I've never adjusted mine as I too maintain a good following distance and have never had to brake really hard but I also drive a 1 ton dually and the camper isn't much heavier than the truck especially with the weight of the 5th wheel hitch sitting on the truck. Plus there's the fact that I've been a truck driver for 50 years. That helps.

[pcsdpo]

Just a thought to add to the "equation" . . .

My 2020 NoBo Trailer when new wouldn't brake enough even with the controller set to 10. I asked the dealer about that concern and they responded that they are "automatically adjusting" brakes and would wear in to brake properly. I was dumb enough to believe that the dealer knew what they were talking about. The brakes never did "adjust" by themselves. So, I read up on the Axle/brake manufacturer website how to adjust the brakes initially. (verify with your manufacturer . . . )
The manufacturer's procedure for in my brakes involved making sure the brake shoes were properly setup during the assembly process. (they weren't, so I had to adjust the brake shoes myself according to the manufacturer's instructions. ) Once that was done, I followed the manufacturer's instructions for breaking in the new brake shoes which involved driving with the trailer brakes engaged (on a deserted paved road) for a period of time until the brake shoes smoked and the brake drums reached an ungodly temperature (See your own manufacturer's break in procedure). After doing that procedure, my brakes on my trailer work like you'd expect them to work and the controller actually will work properly when the setting is changed and stop your trailer.

My point is that besides the controller, the brake shoes need to be properly adjusted and broken in to work to the best of the trailer brakes designed specifications.

[Jermy01]

I just picked up my new trailer and have the same experience. What brand of brakes do u have and where did u find the manufacturer information? Thank you