Trailer Brake Adjustment?

Here’s a question for all you towing experts out there.

I’m in the WV mountains. Just completed a 3 axle brake job on the Highlander and the 179 prior to departure. Adjusted and burnished per recommendations. So I have known good brakes on all 6 wheels, property adjusted. WD hitch adjusted per recommendations to return front axle to original unloaded height.

I have a prodigy p2 which I have set using the “mcarter” method to hold the Highlander from creeping forward on flat ground in drive. That resulted in a brake setting of about 4.0 on the p2. I too felt like the setup instructions to adjust for incipient lockup at 20mph we’re too agressive.

So thats the setup. Now the reality. After going over each of the 7 Appalachian ridges on my route there is about a 2000 ft vertical drop, 8-10% grades for 4-5 miles. Lots of 25-30 mph curves thrown in. A great test of a proper balanced brake setup I think. I drive very conservatively using mostly engine braking on these grades. At the bottom of each grade I stopped and used my ir thermometer to check brake temps.

Front axle brakes about 140-150F, rear TV brakes about 180-220 F. Rear TV disc brakes are clearly doing more work than I would like compared to the much more capable front discs. No dive loading the front axle due to tongue loading? Trailer brakes about 85-90F. Pretty obviously the trailer brakes are not doing squat. So I starting adjusting the gain up slowly on the p2. After the last downhill grade I was at about 6.0 and still no heating at all to speak of on the trailer brakes.

So my question for this group is should I continue to increase gain on the p2 until I see at least some temp rise on the trailer brakes? How much? Should I adjust the timing of engagement on the trailer brakes on the p2 so they come in sooner? Should I use the WD hitch to unload the Highlander rear axle a bit more to see if that transfers some braking load to the front axle?

I’ll be here for a week with intermittent internet access so will respond when I can. And I can continue the experiment over the same 7 ridges when I return home and will report the results.

Thanks!

What I got out of this is you have 3 different axle loads, and you have made temp measurements on them and decided the least axle load is doing nothing. All based on IR. We all know the most aggressive brake is the front disc. I would expect it to be hottest. Odd rear brake is the hottest. The trailer I believe and your controller is working, you set it to stop the trailer. When you did that it also produced a reducing action to the TV. It doesn't roll forward in idle. So it provides a resistance which is more than "squat". Have you looked at axle load on the TV. My suspicion is you are light in the front, very minimally. Also think about cooling. The front brakes may cool better. The rear brakes may cool less efficiently. I have found my trailer brakes do cool efficiently. Not a science project but without seeing what the efficiency is all the time hard to deduce.

Offgrid,

I understand what you are saying. I have a tendency to believe that using the engine braking does decrease the brake signal to the trailer. I like the idea of running TV downhill without the trailer, normally front brakes run hotter, that is reason fronts usually require change prior to rears. I own pickups and the front axle is heavier loaded than rear. Interested in results.

The engine brake seems to add some varibles. The trailer on flat ground, with manual or proportional brake seems to be fine. Not sure I get what you're saying about weight of the TV. The TV is heavier than the trailer guaranteed. Then you have to consider the weight transfer, with engine braking or standard braking. The trailer along with it's brakes doesn't work alone. It works ICW the TV.

Been there.