Locking brakes

Tsherwood · 08-06-2017, 04:54 AM

Hello everyone,
I recently purchased a 1993 Sunline Saturn T-1740. My question is this. While towing the trailer home I noticed that the brakes were locking up when I applied the tow vehicle brakes. I found this odd as there are no electric breaks on the trailer just the emergency ones. When i disconnect the plug from tow vehicle it works fine. But i have to have lights while towing. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance .
Tim

ggrvguy · 08-06-2017, 06:52 AM

I have the same trailer. There are electric brakes on the trailer and you need a brake controller in your vehicle to activate them. Sounds like someone's rewired the plug to trigger the brakes off the stop lights. You need to get a brake control installed and have someone check the wiring.

Tsherwood · 08-06-2017, 11:02 AM

Thank you. I knew it had to be something like that.

mainah · 08-07-2017, 05:45 PM

The camper should have brakes. Does your TV have a brake controller? Without a controller it really shouldn't do anything if you are connected to a 7 pin socket. If some one put a 4 pin on the camper/TV then anything goes any way the only way it would do that if 12 volts was being supplied to the blue wire in the harness.

**Sunline Fan** · 08-08-2017, 10:11 AM

Agreed with what everyone is saying so far, but the "emergency" brakes you mention is just a switch to apply full power to the brakes when the key is pulled out. It's not like a car where there's a separate emergency brake system- this one is just for breakaway and not designed to be used when parked- in fact it's dangerous to use it when parked. But the brakes activated by that switch are the same ones controlled by your vehicle, and as others have said, you need a controller in the vehicle to adjust how much power goes to them.

Did you recently change tow vehicles or have the trailer serviced?

mainah · 08-08-2017, 06:37 PM

I have seen trailer brakes wired to the turn signal wire it's pretty funny you know exactly what's going on when someone makes a turn and their brakes lockup with every flash! The same thing of course can happen if they are wired to the brake lights.