Electric brake problem

Joe Camilleri

Joe Camilleri

New member
I bought an older open trailer with brakes on two axles. It looked like they had not been used for some time.

I installed a brake controller in my van and rewired the trailer. So far I don't get any signal on the controller that the trailer is hooked up. Where do I start trouble shooting?

Thanks in advance.
 
Start with the basics. If the controller is not "seeing" the trailer:

  1. Split the circuit in half. Make sure there is a controller output signal at the connector on the tow vehicle.
  2. Going to the trailer, and assuming you have output at the connector, make sure that those signals are actually getting to the devices (brakes) they control. You can also do this with a simple continuity check from the trailer side of the connector to the brakes.
  3. Check your grounds. Most of the time the problem is there. Check from the brakes to the trailer frame, and then make sure you have a solid ground connection back to the tow vehicle. In many wiring senarios trailers usually ground through the hitch, and this is not always a good solution. I often like to run a seperate ground from the trailer, through a connector, to the tow vehicle.
Hope this helps.
 
Joe, I have a BrakeMate MT electric which controls the rear axle of a tandem axle. It has a hard adjust & a soft adjust with one red light. The red light comes on when the foot brake is applied. Nothing indicates when the trailer is attached to the truck.

Is there something on your controler/instructions that indicates a connection when the trailer is attached?

EDIT: DUH, to early inthe morining. I was thinking install, hook trailer & everything worked a ok. I was not thinking in a Ohm meter testing mode. Rob makes good test points.
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone for the tips. As usual, I'll start with the basics.

The wiring has a rather beefy ground wire to the trailer and the controller LED is supposed to light up green when connected.

I'll let you know what I find.
 
Glad that it got worked out... as a heads to people... the follwoing website has an insane about or videos, diagrams, instructions, etc... It has been very, very helpful for me on a few occaisons. No affiliation, just a fan.

www.etrailer.com

Thanks,
BB
 
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