JBarca wrote:
Hi,
I'll see if I can help.
From your post, you have 2 totally different problems going on. The WD on your truck may not be set correct and you had a brake problem or still do.
I cannot make the connection on how a trailer high or low will cause the front brakes of a TT to "burn" out in short order. Being real high or real low can affect springs and tire loading but brakes? I cannot see that or need someone to explain technically how they came to this conclusion.
What can burn out a set of brakes is miss adjustment. If they are over tightened then they wear all the time until the wear creates clearance. Or the rear brakes are not doing much of anything and the front ones are doing all the braking.
All 4 brakes need to be adjusted to come on at the same time. If not the one adjusted the closet (tightest) will heat up real fast. That one brake is trying to stop the entire camper and obviously it cannot so it wears faster first.
Here is something to help sort this out. You can do a stop test on gravel and have some one watch you stop from going 5 to 10 mph. Go 5 to 10 mph and put the brakes on firm. The spotter will see which brake locks first or at all. You will need to do this a few times to try and not lock up but come real close to lock up. And when you find the tightest one locking up first, crawl under a go 2 clicks less adjustment and try it again.
Then once your past this, go for a road test. Try to not stop a lot as stop and go heats up brakes fast. When traveling to camp come to an easy stop at a rest area. Feel for heat on each hub or brake drum. Do not touch, come close and feel radiant heat. If it is not burning hot then touch. All 4 wheels need be to close to the same heat. If you have a hot one, it is braking harder then the rest. Crawl under and un-click 2 clicks. Test again a the next stop. Be careful on the heat feeling. A hot brake can be in the 200 F plus range and burn. I have one of those infrared heat guns in the cab. They work great and you can see the 200F brake and the 130 F one. I shot through the wheel spokes to the drum OD.
If you are not one to adjust the brakes, you can at least feel for heat and find out if you have even or heavy braking on 1 or 2 wheels to tell the dealer that brake is over working. I do this heat check often when we we stop while towing. You can keep looking all the time. A cold brake means it is doing nothing, a wire broke, something in side froze up etc. A hot brake means it is over adjusted or something broke keeping it on. Simply feeling for even heat helps you know things are working right or not.
Now to your WD hitch. Since the WD bars snap up so much easier, that points to less weight transfer. That may be that you were over adjusted before, it was closer to right or now your not enough weight transfer. Do you know the fender heights of front and rear, hitch with WD engaged and then unhitched? You need to know these numbers before adding or subtracting links or hitch head tilt.
On the top of this towing forum are 2 sticky notes. One on how to set up a WD hitch, the other on trailer brake service. See both to help explain more on both areas. Your WD hitch may not be setup optimum yet.
Then come back and ask more questions to help get your setup optimized.
Hope this helps
John
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