A brake controller similar to my old one
For those of you who never tow anything, I will enlighten you on what a brake controller is: it is a device that controls the brakes on whatever you are towing. When you press the brakes on the truck it sends a signal to the trailer to activate its brakes too. The truck and the trailer then brake together. It is mounted under the dash in the truck.
There were two reasons why I believed that I had a brake controller problem: (1) the poor performance of the brakes when coming down the hill after getting hit with the coolant hose leak and (2) the fact that the controller display was always red. I had this vague memory that the display should be green when the trailer was attached. But I wasn’t 100% certain about either. It was a steep hill and I was already rattled from the engine problem Perhaps I was going too fast or my new rear brakes on the truck weren’t set quite right. And the green display? I am old and forget things. Maybe I forgot that the screen was always red. I never had documentation for the device, so I couldn’t easily check what the correct color should be.
But I couldn’t take the chance. At the very least I had to convince myself, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was no real problem. Besides, Jett said that there was NO WAY that she would be riding in the truck if there was any possibility that the 8-ton trailer behind us had no brakes. She said that she would fly to Virginia if I insisted on driving the rig down there without firmly fixing the problem. I went so far as to actually book a ticket from Binghamton to DC.
So my first step, after retrieving the truck on Friday morning, was to find a local dealer of hitches and brake controllers. I found one, drove to his small shop and discussed the problem. He said it was most likely a corroded contact problem and sold me a spray can of brake cleaner (best for cleaning electrical contacts, he said) for about $7. I also booked an appointment with him for a more thorough inspection and diagnosis first thing Monday, which was the earliest he could fit me in. I dearly hoped it wouldn’t come to that as I thought I would end up slitting my wrists if I had to spend another weekend at Chenango Shores.
I did one more thing: I got his permission to hitch my truck to one of the trailers on his lot that had electrical brakes like my RV. Hitched up. Same behavior. That experiment convinced me that the problem – if there was one – was on the truck side of the connector; the RV was not implicated. That was good to know as it narrowed the problem and meant that I could deal with it by looking only at the truck.
My next stop was at a Love’s travel stop where I asked if anyone was available to look at the problem. No, but they suggested that I talk to the various muffler and brake places nearby.
Third stop: Midas Muffler. The manager there seemed fairly knowledgeable about brake controllers and showed me the connector panel mounted near the rear axle. He said that the panel had a tiny microprocessor and suggested that replacing the panel and the socket on the bumper would almost certainly fix the problem. I scheduled a Saturday “first thing” appointment.
Fourth stop: Munro Brakes. The offered to do an electrical check of the controller and wiring for about $60. I took the offer and had lunch while they worked. Conclusion: no breaks in the wiring and no abnormal voltages.
That was all done Friday afternoon. I went back to the RV with the depressing knowledge that we would not be leaving that day. I paid for another day.
Saturday morning I took the truck back to Midas for its 8:15 am appointment. They finished the work in about 90 minutes. Cost: $370. I drove back to the RV, hooked up the umbilical. Red display. Crushed, I went in to discuss the problem with Jett. We agreed that the next step (and, indeed, the only thing left to try) was to replace the controller itself.
But first, I said to Jett, there is one more thing I needed to check. I wanted to verify that the setup was correct. There were really only two things to set: the brake type (it was correctly set to “electric” and not “hydraulic”) and the display settings. There was a choice of display color. It was set to “red” and the other choices were “white” and… wait for it… “green.” Was it possible that I just had the wrong display setting? I tried to set it to “green” and… poof!… the display went blank.
That put a lot of weight down on the side of “faulty.”
I got the number for Jim’s RV Center, drove the 6 miles to where I could get cell service, called them and confirmed that they had, in stock, a brake controller from the same manufacturer as mine. Praying that the controllers would be plug-compatible, I drove the 30 miles to their location, extracted my controller, took it in and confirmed that the plugs were identical. I then asked if there was any way to test my controller and they said that they had a tester in back. They took my controller into the back room and returned about 10 minutes later with the declaration “Yup, it’s bad.” Grateful to finally have a firm handle on the problem, I bought the new one ($120), drove 30 miles back to Chenango Shores, plugged the RV and pressed the test lever on the controller… it went from green to red! That was enough to convince me with 99.9% certainty that the problem was finally solved.
Lesson: check the least likely component first. I really went into this believing that the controller was ok. Only by eliminating all other possible problems did I settle on the controller as the culprit.
I informed the campground owner that we would be leaving on Sunday morning. Perfect timing because Sunday was the last day of his season.
I also cancelled Jett’s airplane ticket.
Sunday had its own stresses, which I will leave for the next post, but the bottom line was that the new brake controller did, in fact, control the brakes. Confirmation that the problem was finally solved. Total cost: $557.