do i have brakes and how do they work?

[noralee]

i see the small box on my tongue and i read on the forum that that is the brake box, but that it was only for an emergency brake.

i thought that the camper had regular brakes that could be used in addition to the tow vehicle brakes used while driving. is this correct? and does my camper have these kind of brakes? if so, where would i find them? 1983 tt1350.

thank you~

[mainah]

If it has the little box with a cable it most likely does have electric brakes. One way to find out (as long as you have a charged battery hook up) is to pull the plug out of the little box and see if it locks up the brakes on the trailer. The emergency brakes and the trailer brakes are the same.The brake wire in your plug should be blue.

[bunjin]

noralee,

Hi. My 1983 T-1550 has electric brakes. I can't be sure the T-1350 does. I say this only because the 1350 is a fairly light trailer and may not have required them....esp. in 1983. However is fairly easy to verify. If you crawl under the trailer and find wires coming from the axle tube to the brake drum back plate, then you do have electric brakes. Wither they work or not is a different story.

The "brake box" you refer to is I'm guessing the breakaway cable switch. If you have one mounted on the "A" frame side, be it the right side or the left side or on the top of either somewhere near the tongue that should indicate you have/had electric brakes.

The breakaway brake system is for applying the brakes in the event the trailer comes off the hitch ball while traveling. the cable is attached to the tow vehicle, for example at one of the eyes where the chain would be also attached. When trailer detaches, the cable pulls on the pin which is a wedge holding a switch open. As the pin pulls out the switch contacts come together allowing current to flow from your trailer battery to the trailer brakes causing the brakes to operate. The object is to avoid the trailer from running willy-nilly to who knows where for who knows how long. It is something hopefully you purchased and will never have come into play.

The breaks can also be controlled by a brake controller which is mounted inside the tow vehicle. This works in conjunction with your tow vehicle breaks and trailer brakes. With this setup the tow vehicle doesn't have to do all the work, but allows the trailer to help break itself. The controller can be adjusted for different loads and there are two types of controllers. The caveat is does your tow vehicle have the wiring in place for a controller, i.e. is the vehicle purchased with tow package?

I'm going to let the more experience pick this up as they can be more precise with the systems and how they interact.

In closing I will say one way to think of how the breakaway switch works is when you buy and item that has batteries in it and you pull the tab out for the batteries to make contact for the first time. The items switch could be on but that tab holds the contact open.

[noralee]

hi,
i've verified that the TT does have electric brakes. but have not tested to see if they are working. below is a picture of the break box on the tongue. From the previous replies, I would think that there should be another connection from the "eye" --white circular pin in the end facing the tow vehicle-- to the tow vehicle or chains. is this correct? i'm showing the picture hoping that someone can verify if it looks like it's setup correctly or if it does need another connector. you can see the white pin on the end.

thanks!

[mainah]

The way it is it will not work for two reasons there is no connection to the wire that has a little blue connector and no small cable that connects to the switch and your TV hitch. The little cable is not electrical it literally yanks the small white part out off the switch should the trailer become disconnected and allows battery power to apply the breaks. None of this no matter how well things are connected will work with out a camper battery also.

[Jim-Bev-2363]

With brakes on the camper you will need a actuator in your tow vehicle. Just running a 12V power to the camper will not be enuff. You must regulate that power. With no regulator it will be like slamming the brakes on each time you apply the 12V to the brakes.

[noralee]

thanks. i do have the battery hooked up, but do not have an actuator so i'll have to look into what this is and what to do about it. thanks again for your input.