| Toad brake issue [message #265750] |
Sun, 09 November 2014 21:41  |
kerry pinkerton
Messages: 2565
Registered: July 2012
Location: Harvest, Al
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My cousin came in for a visit in his (to him) new diesel pusher. He tows a Lincoln suv and when he came in he told me that he had run up on the exit and gotten on the brakes pretty hard not to miss it. He heard some noise and looked back and saw a huge cloud of smoke. After he got off the interstate, he pulled over and checked out his toad. Both the rear tires were flatspotted.
When he got here, we looked at it and in one spot, the tires had at least an 1/8th ground off in one spot. I've never seen anything like it.
He was going to get new tires anyway before winter so he just got 4 new Michelins here.
He purchased a new "Brake Buddy" brand system and the dealer he got the coach from installed a new tow plate on the Lincoln. I suggested he had the sensitivity set WAY too high and he agreed. The brake buddy is a box that sits in the floor in front of the seat. It has a onboard compressor and presses on the brake pedal. You are supposed to press a button on the box 5 times to cause it to stroke the toad brake pedal down and dump all the vacuum from the booster.
A few hours later, he said he had stopped just up the road at a truck stop and had started the ignition on the Lincoln for a few minutes (like the manual says). We quickly realized what had happened. When he started the engine, it pulled 18 inches of vacuum in the booster. As he was pulling out, he MAY not have even touched the brake before he got on the interstate. When he did the hard stop a few miles later, the brake buddy did it's normal pedal press of X pounds on the pedal but since the booster still had vacuum in it, the effect was MUCH amplified and locked up the tires. While his Brake Buddy might have been set a bit too much, the PROBLEM was literally amplified because the booster had vacuum in it.
As I got thinking about it, this is an issue for most of the brake systems on the market. I use a Ready Brake which is a mechanical system that pulls the brake cable proportionally to how hard the coach is stopping. I have never manually dumped the vacuum before pulling out and because I've usually started the Saturn while hooking up, the booster is always got vacuum in it. I guess the reason I've never noticed it is because I probably ease on the brakes a few times before I ever have a HARD stop. Plus, I don't have it set very tight.
Being relatively new to all this, it's quite a sobering piece of knowledge. Has anyone else ever run into this? Or is it common knowledge that I've just missed in drinking from the GMC firehose fount of knowledge?
Kerry Pinkerton - North Alabama
Had 5 over the years. Currently have a '06 Fleetwood Discovery 39L
[Updated on: Sun, 09 November 2014 21:41] Report message to a moderator |
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