Brake Short
I was tooling down I95 in Georgia and see something flash out of the corner of my eye. The brake controller is reading brakes shorted, NO BRAKES. I ease over onto the shoulder, and try to figure out what the problem is. Trailer is a Voltage V 3105 5th wheel toy hauler.
I crawl around under the trailer with traffic going by at 70 MPH +. Now that was scary! I don't see anything cut, worn or shorted. Pull the plug from the trailer, and controller no longer shows shorted, so assume fault is in trailer, not truck.
I reconnect the trailer and check all around again. I hear a faint ticking from one wheel, can barely hear with the traffic whizzing by. It seems to stop when I unplug the trailer from the truck, so I guess that there's something up with that one wheel. Having nothing to lose, I cut the white power wire to that brake. Viola, short gone. I assume the ticking was the electronic brake cycling on an off. We were able to make it to the campground in FL with 3 of the 4 trailer brakes working.
We'll be here for a few weeks. I don't want to have to pack up and move the trailer to a service center, even though it is under warranty. I assume it's either a wire that got pinched and shorted, or a defective electronic brake unit. Anyone have any ideas what the problem is likely to be? Are all electronic brake units the same? I may have a spare from my old travel trailer.
Thankfully, this didn't happen in the mountain where we live, or on our last trip up and down the mountains in Maine. I'm also glad I replaced the old Prodigy P2 controller with the newest P3 model, that has diagnostics which made it easier to figure out what the problem was.
This is our first 5th wheel. I've pulled tires on travel trailers. Can I just jack up that one wheel with the 5th wheel sitting on it's landing gear? Is there anything special to do? Pull up the rear stabilizers, or do I need to hook up to the truck and pull up the landing gear?
Appreciate any guidance.
Thanks.
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