Why are trailer brakes such a pain in the ass? Why is trailer wiring so janky? Because money. I muddle through a simple wiring problem on a tent trailer.
I spent 40 years wrenching on cars and stuff mostly in dealerships. I am now 75 years old, 10 years retired. Watched some of your videos they nearly brought tears. The way you think, talk and try to reason why the fuck. The memory of working with real men and idiots, the mechonic’s mind set, the tricks of the trade that dumbfounded the ignorant, the heavy price paid for skilled eyes, ears, and hands. The hands on knowledge of mechanical physics learned through trial and error while losing my ass on the clock. Now all that wonderful is a fading memory, my life now is around polite old men and the wife 24/7 while young men (rightly so) don’t give a shit how I did it yesterday. And sure don’t write very well either.
I'm 21 and a girl but I have a pretty romantic view of jobs like this done back before everything was so computerized. Like if I could experience a life 70 years ago as a cowboy or mechanic doing real and fulfilling work. Now I'm in mechanical engineering and it's nothing like this. Maybe it's just because its college but I never thought I'd have to buy a business suit for a mechanical engineering job. Or that I'd have to know so much about computers.
Here I am a young man still wishing I knew the right way to approach and learn from great teachers like yourself in person. When I hear him speak, I recognize something that wasn't a part of my life in the way he speaks. I've always been one to break things down to try to understand, but many times that has ended in punishment in the age of warranty stickers and bad breakdown guides. There is so much of this passing knowledge and I'm just thankful to have read your comment.
Respect bruv, today is all replacement, n computer diagnosis, u wanna learn mech skills, buy an older vehicle, maintain it yourself n deal with the many issues that'll come up.
@@marksheppard4475 this is definitely the best way in my opinion for a great ground floor of understanding. Even having a good scanner on things from 2010 sometimes isnt enough to get where you wanna go
"It's always the last thing you fix that solves the problem." It gets much harder to judge your progress if you continue fixing a problem after it's solved.
Why is trailer wiring so universally terrible? If somebody marketed a top quality waterproof wiring harness that happened to come with a trailer attached to it, they'd sell a million units.
You're absolutely right. Trailer wiring only lasts a year, maybe two. Mine had the unfortunate intermittent issue of only working when stopped. Had a few too many people not too pleased with my lack of signals. Ended up ripping everything out and rebuilding from scratch. Soldered it all up. Lathered on liquid electrical tape and heat shrink on every connection with dielectric grease on the screw terminals. Four years and still going strong!
I know a better song - I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves! I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get get get on your nerves ..... I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves! I know a song that'll get on your nerves, get get get on your nerves.
@@TheFakeRussian Y es que yo conozco una canción que te pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios. Y es que yo conozco una canción que te pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios. Y es que yo conozco una canción que te pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios. Cuya letra empieza así: Y es que yo conozco una canción que te pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios, pone de los nervios...
I just bought a trailer & the wiring was comfumbled, I have a 7 way plug with brake booster as well so ling story short took me 3 hours to figured out the rewire soldered the connections & heat strinked & done. Working great now...
Here in Australia, the from the factory trailer wiring is of the exact same quality. There must be a secret international standard that trailer builders all adhere too, that mandates the same rats nest of wires and crappy loose connectors.
@@matejjakopic7797 Zinc coated chassis, well protected wiring, mechanical brakes and decent priced from factory - you cannot complain about European trailer marked!
Steve Jay yeah and get a load of those generic Chinese import galvanised box trailers that are all identical but sold under a hundred different brand names yeah I’m Aussie too I’ve got 2 of the geesless things
That "telephony IDC connector" , Blueys we called them was a blast from the past, not too bad inside the car but never outside and after using a couple you never used them ever again.
Years ago my brother taught me a fun trick. We rewired a boat trailer (no brakes, so a four pin connector) with a grounded extension cord as a donor. The ground part was the only thing that needed any decent work.
My best friend had a baby recently, He found a baby changing station while grocery shopping. Left that baby there for over an hour and upon his return that baby... That fucking baby was Still Canadian
@@papajon6715 You mean the one he got "twiterpated" about? He also called her a "beautiful woman in a sundress" I mean canadians are odd, but not SWJ odd.....
@@whatfreedom7 but I detect a lack of soarry from him so my professional diagnosis is nope not Canadian probably chinese hence the knowledge of evil pixies or french suggest trying the invading German Army test and see four signs of surrender
Here in the UK we have a mechanical system for the brakes either using steel cables and levers or hydraulics. As the trailer moves forward from braking of the vehicle the brakes are applied by the hitch on the trailer tightening the steel cable or using a hydraulic cylinder. The only thing electrical normally is the lights (LH turn signal, LH tail light, RH turn signal, RH tail light, shared brake light and a fog light) for caravans they have their own plug usually white, you can read up on it searching for 12s and 12n wiring
I feel your pain. Last winter I had to replace the factory RV plug on my '16 F-350 that went tits-up. By spring, my rusty/crusty snowmobile trailer was popping the taillight fuse on the truck... And I haven't yet fixed it yet... More than a dozen lights and associated wiring to check...
AvE!!! First off I want to thank you again for sending my husband some t shirts a couple years ago for his birthday! Actually, 2 years this month. Loved seeing his smile when he opened his gift. I actually wanted to reach out and ask you if you have a po box that we could, well he could send you something he thinks you would appreciate. He tried looking around for an address because he wanted to surprise you. Thanks for taking the time!!
I recommend that people watch aVe's videos with closed captions turned on. I sometimes do this on RU-vid just for schnitzel pickles. The CC sometimes are amazingly good at grocking his tounguetangulations, but they do fall short on some occasions. They actually seem better than on other channels that don't aVespeak. Maybe RU-vid has a specialist team on the job!
I bought brand new led lights with wiring from the home depot. It all installed nicely and worked fine. A year later, the lights kept blinking out. I found some broken connections so I tried to strip back the wire to replace them. The wire broke every time I tried to strip it. The entire length of wire was corroded inside the insulation. I have never seen such crap material used. I dont know if the wire was actually copper plated pig iron or if somehow the chemicals in the insulation attacked it. I replaced it all with random shit scavenged wire I found in the garage and it worked fine. Still does, years later. Unfortunately, I didn't have the right color wire laying around so good luck to the next person to trouble shoot it.
The trick is lacing the wiring where it can't move like you are sending it into space, soldering in the 'crimp-on' connectors, and lots of dielectric grease and heat shrink tubing.
As someone who towed a racecar with an open trailer for 20 years, I always said the drive to the track and home was more dangerous than the race it self. Mostly because there is always something wrong with the trailer. No matter how many times you work on the wiring, there is always something else.
As a manager at a cargo company i can tell you bare minimum is usually what you get in all aspects of any trailer and sometimes the new kid fresh from high school that thinks electricity is magic, fucks er right up. It only gets caught by final. And they never have the weather proof scotch locks. Or other necessary tools or parts. Add this scenario for any problem you can think of and you get a shit box on wheels. Add the fact that we are rate paid, not hourly. And it all makes sense. Which brings me to a popular saying amongst my friends and i. "You can't polish a turd, but you sure can roll it in glitter!" we are constantly striving for a quality product. And if you pay for a higher model trailer you get what you pay for. But we really don't expect these things to last more than 5 years past warranty. Especially if not taken care of.
I hate trailer electrics, completely agree always as janky as hell, sometimes easier just to assume it's all shit and rip it out and rewire correctly. That said I've never seen electronic pixie-brakes like that before.
I have a LandRover Freelander2 which has so-called electronic park brakes. They are actually electric actuators managed by a computer, but they do work quite reliably. To us in the UK electrical trailer running brakes seem strange to say the least.
@90vanman - well unless the tow vehicle has the appropriate controller, they are!
5 лет назад
My problem is: You keep talking just like me, I keep laughing and must then rewind to catch another slip of the tongue. You are a man after this straight guy's heart...so to speak. p.s. Nice professional use of tools. Thumbs Up & Subscribed! Just a little nick. Facts. I sing with you, my brotha.
You may already know, you can buy "battery terminal cleaners", basically a socket with an internal wire brush, works good on threads too. They are cheap af.
Trailer wiring should be in modular conduits that can just be popped in and out. The shit what people will do with wiring never ceases to confuse and enrage me.
Same thing the world over. If you have a set of skills, you end up doing favors ie free jobs for friends, family and friends of family with the nearly always deceptive, "its probably nothing, but could you take a look at it?" In my case, I interrupted a low-paying career in the therapy field with a stint in the (comparably) high paying field of I.T. in the middle. These days, you can get t-shirts that say, "no, I will not fix your computer!" But a couple of decades ago, no such thing. I can't tell you the number of times I spent hours hunched over someone's computer doing for free what I normally made $50 an hour doing. Nearly always it was a POS computer from a big box store and the user had visited every website on the planet sans virus protection. Enough to drive a woman to drink! In any event, my heart goes out to you.... .
I only wire trailers with 3 wire extension cords, one length will do your lights, and a second will do brakes and what not, it’s pre loomed and tougher than any trailer wire!
I'm an electrician. A half hour into the troubleshooting I would go to lunch ordering a new trailer harness and light set. Faster and easier just to rewire the damn thing.
Don’t heat or beat drums if they have a ridge. Use the access port to adjust the star wheel adjuster between the lower part of the brake shoes. Back off adjuster, remove drum, machine drum, adjust install etc. Good video though, when comes to trailers I star from scratch and add a back up camera on the truck and one on the trailer with a selection switch. (Two trailer connectors, second is pwr/Gnd and RG-179 to extend trailer camera coax)
Thats how you know a man has made a living with his hands when a zip tie not cut clean means something 😂😂😂 We need to get the info out to my 1st and 2nd shift comrades.
That's why you never cut the sheath off that way, always tear it to the point you want it exposed then slice it off pointing the blade away from the wires. If you can't tear it down the length, then score it but don't cut through
You have once again verified why no matter how good a friend I ain’t going to work on your stinking trailer. Go pay someone ,at least they are getting something out of a truly shitty experience, and as we say in Canadian good job eh. Stay Well and Be Blessed
you are a man after my own breeding cycle, before leaving the house I always check , spectacles testicles wallet and watch, just in case some Evil Kinevil whishes to use my body as a speedway.
I guarantee sticking 12v up your Fluke meter on ohms won't damage the meter, you'll just get garbage readings. If you really wanna be paranoid, use the dcv setting to check for resistance/continuity first. If there's anything other than open circuit, it'll show 0.000v. If there's a dc voltage there, obviously it'll show that. If there's an ac voltage there, it'll show an unstable reading. If it's open circuit, you'll get a very low (in the tens of millivolts) reading that'll slowly climb.
@15:48 - the "bias" is due to the operation. The leading shoe upon actuation wedges the trailing shoe between the drum and the anchor pin. As both wear, the point of effective frictional contact will climb the shoes. They do not wear concentrically relative to the drum..
don't you guys get it, he can speak french, I don't know many Americans that speak french, I have no problem, where he is from I'm not prejudiced, he is a funny guy and I'm in Scotland.
I would of started by installing a junction box near the hitch. Then installed a new trailer plug with a new cable into said junction box. Then you replace everything coming out of it. I’ll even give you my 10/10 warranty. Because it’s a trailer it 10 feet or 10 sec which ever comes first.
Are those horrible brakes a legal requirement? I got the good old fashioned hydraulic brakes on my trailers. No problems ever, well most days. But trailer wiring is always a feckin mess!
Do you ever get the "custom" wiring jobs? Thought they could keep people from stealing their trailor if they change the 7 way but don't tell the tech working on it.
When you are checking resistance, I'm assuming you are using Ohm's law. Are you measuring the resistance based off of the 12 volt battery and using the amperage which would close to 550ish? Is that how you are determining it?
Whoever employed the individual to do the original wiring job was violating child labor flaws. And while we're speaking of flaws with that wiring, there's no better place to enjoy a nice warm battery fire than right next to a full tank of propane. That'll wake up the kids!
0:34 Did you have to use bar oil when you cut the hole in the dashboard with a chainsaw? Normally I use an electric demolition hammer on my interior automotive work..
Marrettes? Haven't heard that in the States, Canada's underpants you may say. Wire nuts, designed for solid wire and convenient house fires. Those crimpies are skookum.
Honestly, it probably would've been easier just to rip out all the garbage toss it in the art bin and start fresh with proper wiring and harnesses and sheaths instead of mix and match and fabricobbling the wiring just for it to short out somewhere else
Only thing worse than trailer wiring is electrical tape on trailer wiring... I don’t understand how it can remain so sticky, yet never stick to anything!
You usually hear "fast, cheap and done right... pick 2". Pulling all the wire and starting over is the exception to this rule by ticking all three boxes in the long run.
Tyler Boespflug I bet in most cases it ends up being cheaper instead of diagnosing every bad wire. Usually ends up being the same with brakes, bearings, jacks, etc. Parts are cheap labor is expensive
One correction, some mis-diagnosis on your part here. The brake-away contraption was working correctly, but some context is important. First consider the kind of cliff-side mountain road that is twisted and bumpy enough to knock a whole trailer loose. First things first, the driver ain't got time to worry about whatever's happening to the trailer, he's got more important things to focus on for a little while. *Did you see that reaction time? 2.5 seconds and there's already smoke. Perfect.* Now that wiring is laced throughout the whole flammable underside of the trailer right? Those thin unjacketed wires are that way from the factory by design! In another 10 seconds the whole trailer would have been up in evenly-distributed smoke. But no fire yet, see where I'm headed? That's your critical timing right there. It's an old Indian trick, smoke signals. The purpose of the smoke is to help you locate the trailer at the bottom of the ravine it's now lying in after you got the truck back under control and your passenger is sitting upright again and looking for a tissue. Now I was talking about timing, see, you've got yourself a few minutes to find the trailer from the smoke signals and disconnect the battery. Else, feature #2 kicks in: Insurance Claim. Did you know that if an animal is alive when you hit it, it's not considered an avoidable obstacle, and your comprehensive coverage will pay out and it's not considered an at-fault claim so your premiums won't increase? Call your broker, it's true. So, your driving was fine, an animal jumped out of the bush, you knocked it back into the ravine, the trailer came loose from the swerving... presto. New trailer. Now all those years of neglect, water rot, bent jack, sun-rotted air vent.. they're all about to pay off. Why fix the cow when you can get the milk for free? What condition was the trailer in? Well, no one'll ever know, because Feature #2 makes sure there's nothing left but box tube and ashes. What you've done here is tamper with the factory settings and voiding the whole warranty system. This thing is going to crash and you're not going to get a penny for it, you're actually going to have to fix it. And who wants that?
Just don't do what Frosty did and small ball it. My buddy and I sent 2 months rebuilding, and properly repainting a tilt bed trailer for his business. His dad and Frosty borrowed it to haul something. Frosty had a 1 7/8" hitch, and the trailer had a 2" slot. Frosty swore it'd be fine. They ended up having to pry it out of the guard rail, and the trailer required a trailer.
When I get trailers in the shop I can almost guarantee I’m gonna start by pulling out all the wiring and running a new 7x14g wire and start fresh. Saves me at least two hours of trying to figure out what the last guy did because you know the wire is going to change color about three times before it gets to the back.
What you on about. I buy a roll of wire of one color so everything is the same color - ground, positive, and other. I know which wire is which (left, right, high, low) or I lay one wire down at a time so either the first wire is the ground or the last wire is the ground. Did not worry about fixing it as it worked when I was done. Yeah, it would be HELL if it was a repair job. I don't do repairs.
