Surge brake glide roller....almost lost one.

[badrano]

I discovered this yesterday and I'm wondering how often such as issue can occur. I was out last week and had a feeling I was having a brake dragging issue as all 4 hubs were too hot to touch. Trailered out yesterday and the same thing...this time I had one of the thermal temp gun....the coolest hub was above 120 and the hottest around 180....then I discovered the glide roller hanging on. I'm pretty sure this was not the case last week or when I left yesterday...I would I hope I would have noticed that. Before yesterdays trip, I pumped grease in to the wheels.
Part of me is thinking that the actuator couldn't fully release causing the disc brakes to drag. If it was just one wheel, I would suspect a bearing issue or stuck caliper as a cause, but not all 4. Even with my last trailer where water infiltrated the bearing, I don't think it ran this hot.


This begs the question, the trailer is 15 years old, you can the see the rust, the calipers have corrosion, I'm probably going to need new brake pads.....is it that time to just replace it all?

 

[bruceb58]

When was the last time you took the calipers off and lubed the guide pins?

BTW, 120 and 180 is not that hot if you just stopped the trailer.

What did you pump grease into? Bearing Buddy? EZ Lube? How often do you pull your wheels and repack bearings?

 

[badrano]

When was the last time you took the calipers off and lubed the guide pins?

BTW, 120 and 180 is not that hot if you just stopped the trailer.

What did you pump grease into? Bearing Buddy? EZ Lube? How often do you pull your wheels and repack bearings?

Full wheel service before taking the boat out first time this year. Done about 4 outings with no problems. Last weekend was the first sign of something going on.
I have the EZlube/Sure-Lube set up.
I coasted to stop last night so I could do a reasonable temp reading. The only reason I decided to pull over was I thought I was seeing smoke in the headlights of the car behind me.

 

[bruceb58]

You can pull the piece that slides in the coupler to make sure it is all ok but my bet is on the caliper pins needing service.

 

[Commander_47]

Looks to me like you have the dreaded rusty slide coupler.

If it is happening with all four wheels it is most likely the coupler. These are not hard to fix. Sometimes all it takes is a good taking apart, cleaning, replacing rusty and frozen parts.

The glide roller might be rusty and frozen and not being allowed to roll. IF you had a leak inside the system, the bottom of the slide might be rusty and scraping along the bottom of the outside. This will freeze up the slide.

I just rebuilt my very old Titan hitch and replaced the master cylinder, top roller and bolt, and all hardware with stainless. Cost was about $150.00 with the master cylinder being $100.00 in and of itself.

The cylinder was rusty inside and a rebuild kit would not work as the rust was where the seal would slide.

Doing a brake job isn't that difficult. But it will take some time. And a 15 year old trailer will definitely need some service.

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