Brake Stutter

D

DuckDogTitus

New member
I am getting an occasional stutter in the trailer brakes on my EZ loader trailer when I stop. Its not always, just occasional. what would cause that? Air in the lines? fluid is topped and brakes are in otherwise good shape, just had the trailer serviced this spring... looking for some troubleshooting suggestions.


:beer
 
Surge brakes or electric?

Stutter usually means pitted or rusty rotors, grease on the pads or rotor. Sounds like you got a bad brake service job. Could also mean that you have one of the four wheels or a pair that are skipping along the ground during braking if you have a tandem axle trailer. That would be caused by pretty sever imbalance of the load on the axles front to back.

Good luck
 
potter water":31m87gi3 said:
Surge brakes or electric?

Stutter usually means pitted or rusty rotors, grease on the pads or rotor. Sounds like you got a bad brake service job. Could also mean that you have one of the four wheels or a pair that are skipping along the ground during braking if you have a tandem axle trailer. That would be caused by pretty sever imbalance of the load on the axles front to back.

Good luck
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Hmmm they are surge, and it is tandem but the boat is not balanced any differently as far as I can tell. that is something I always check when we retrieve, we get kind of picky about that.
 
When I get pump on the brakes, the rotors/disks are warped. Mine got that way from getting really hot. Your may differ, as they say.

Could also be the way the surge brakes interact with the load, sort of an oscillation. Trailer slows down, the surge brakes release the trailer speeds up, but the brakes on, etc.

Just WAGs, since I'm 1000 miles away.

Boris
 
Like Boris said rotors can warp if they get heated up especially if you dunk them in a cold lake before they cool down.

If they are drum brakes another thing to check would be the hardware - weak springs can cause problems especially if the drums are also worn beyond spec. As a rule of thumb if the paint is no longer visible or if they are rusted - replace them.

Air in the line will diminish the braking but I don't know if it would cause your problem. Brake fluid should be replaced and all the old fluid bleed out every X# of years anyway - so you could try that.

Regards, Rob
 
Not sure what you mean by stutter. Is it a noise or vibration, or kind of a jerking on your tow vehicle? It could possibly be one brake catching before the others, locking up, or a "sweet spot" with your coupler that is causing the brakes to apply then release. (Not enuf pressure to completely apply the trailer brakes, but enough to continually activate and release the piston.) Does it just do it during a hard stop, or a very gentle stop? Anything recently changed with your trailer hitch? One other thought comes to mind, a possible internal leak within the hydraulic coupler system. (Think sort of how your car with anti lock brakes acts when you try to lock it up on a slick road. Is the "stutter" anything like that?) Colby
 
colbysmith":318h1qkp said:
Not sure what you mean by stutter. Is it a noise or vibration, or kind of a jerking on your tow vehicle? It could possibly be one brake catching before the others, locking up, or a "sweet spot" with your coupler that is causing the brakes to apply then release. (Not enuf pressure to completely apply the trailer brakes, but enough to continually activate and release the piston.) Does it just do it during a hard stop, or a very gentle stop? Anything recently changed with your trailer hitch? One other thought comes to mind, a possible internal leak within the hydraulic coupler system. (Think sort of how your car with anti lock brakes acts when you try to lock it up on a slick road. Is the "stutter" anything like that?) Colby
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the stutter is like a catch + release + catch + release, or kinda like the wheels are going over a bumpy road all the sudden when slowing down. I haven't it seems to happen more during a soft brake than a hard brake. I havent' noticed any leaks or anything yet, but I think this next week I'm going to either tear all the brakes down myself for inspection or take it in for full service.

the only change I've done this year was had bearing buddies added in the spring (april).
 
I would suggest adjusting the little "star screw" on each brake and see if that helps. (With all at pretty much the same adjustment.) If you recently had the brakes serviced and that meant new shoes, they are probably getting seated and in need of adjustment.) :-) I don't think the bearing buddies would affect it, but I never liked them because I always had the grease pressurized out of the seal onto the brakes. (Could have been operator error in loading too much grease in them, or cheap wheel seals! :-( Colby
 
yeah I am definitely going to tinker with the adjustment. I meant to last night but got stuck bucking hay (330 bales, fun fun). they inspected the brakes and found them in good shape so didn't actually end up replacing the pads. I'll get to the bottom of this though and post a conclusion on the thread in case it comes again later for someone else.
 
Pads, or shoes? :-) Pads are on Disc brakes, and I would then wonder about warpage. Shoes go with drums, and usually don't involve warpage... Semantics does make a difference here. :-) And yes I hate the grammer police too! :mrgreen:
 
Make sure that the tongue actuator is sliding freely. I would out some gear lube on the sliding surfaces. When you are braking lightly, the tongue may be hanging up some. When you got the boat, the brake lines had been thoroughly bled, and it had new actuator on the tongue, and the slave cylinders on the brakes were new. However, backing into salt water corrodes the backing plates, brake shoes, and slave cylinders. You may need new wheel cylinder parts if you have not been rinsing the brakes through the flushing devices. Surprising how fast they get bad.
 
digger":3guwr4ta said:
Make sure that the tongue actuator is sliding freely. I would out some gear lube on the sliding surfaces. When you are braking lightly, the tongue may be hanging up some. When you got the boat, the brake lines had been thoroughly bled, and it had new actuator on the tongue, and the slave cylinders on the brakes were new. However, backing into salt water corrodes the backing plates, brake shoes, and slave cylinders. You may need new wheel cylinder parts if you have not been rinsing the brakes through the flushing devices. Surprising how fast they get bad.
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thanks Ron. I baby it quite a bit when salty. my post salt rinse down is pretty extensive and I always utilize the flushing devices you had on the axles/brakes. I just took a long trip to anacortes and had no brake stutter at all until I got home, and it was only at very low speed through a housing development. normally I tow with the cherokee and the hitch on that suv coincidentally sits much higher than on the 3/4 ton cummins I towed with this weekend, so maybe there is a connection there. I will get it figured out this week. I did have the brakes and everything inspected again this spring when I did a full tuneup and nothing seemed awry. I specifically asked them to really pay attention to any potential corrosion I could have missed because of how much time I spend in the salt and the guys said the boat looked fantastic and said we must do good job washing it down. could have been lip service but the mechanic I went to came highly recommended.
 
Today the trailer got new bearings, new seals, brake adjustment and bled again just in case. it appears to be towing fantastic again. just a few miles so far but we have a long trip coming up in a week or two so that will be the good test.

I think we've narrowed down the culprit to just needing brake adjustment, but the bearings were looking due so its good to get it all done at once.
 
Doesn't take much adjustment to bring in back into whack! :-) I kind of thought that might be what it was. But when you mentioned towing with a different vehicle with a different height on the hitch, that might have caused it too. Colby
 
interestingly enough, the hitch does sit higher on the Cherokee than the Cummins, but the mechanic I had do the bearings/seals etc said it sat well on the Cherokee (hitch height was his concern too before he saw). He of course had plenty to say about how the jeep was incapable of towing such a boat, lol. I'm kind of getting tired of people arguing with me on that.
 
How much of the total weight of the boat/trailer is on the tongue? Does the trailer sit level when hooked up to both vehicles? If the front is higher on the Cherokee than on the Truck, that may be lightly loading the front tires/wheels causing them to skip on braking.

Charlie
 
DuckDogTitus":3couev3v said:
I'm kind of getting tired of people arguing with me on that.
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Well, now that you mention it, the average weight of a 22, boat motor and trailer, is about 3500 lbs. and the new Cherokee (not the Grand Cherokee) is rated at only a 2000 lb. tow capacity with the 4 cyl, but 4500 with the six.
 
dotnmarty":2u26r9cb said:
Well, now that you mention it, the average weight of a 22, boat motor and trailer, is about 3500 lbs.
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I would actually think the average would be higher, maybe 4200-4500#. Not that one couldn't make it lighter (single-axle trailer, careful pruning of gear, empty tanks). I come up with this figure because my 22 on tandem trailer (gear loaded but tanks all empty) weighs in at around 4,350# (4,000# on trailer axles; 350# on tongue), and I have read many reports of folks weighing in at 4,500# to 5,000# all up (they were not trying to have light boats). So maybe one could squeak one in at 3,500#, but probably not average.

(I realize you were not "arguing" the point, but just wanted to mention what I have found.)

On the height issue: I have always read (and it makes sense to me) that a tandem should be towed level. I don't know how out of level your "high" vehicle is, but that may have been a problem. I used two ways to check: One is that I measured from the trailer frame to a level concrete pad, forward and aft; the other was placing a level on the trailer frame. By doing that and then using (in my case) a receiver bar with a specific rise, I was able to get it nice and level. For my particular trailer/rig combo that means the top of the hitch ball is 19-1/2" off the ground.
 
My two cents worth. I've got a tandem axle aluminum EZ Loader Trailer under my 2007 CD-22 Cruiser with a Mercury 115hp EFI 4-stroke and 6HP Tahatsu Kicker. These are actual weights:


C-Dory & Trailer (Full gas tanks, water tank 2/3 full, Cooler in cockpit approx. 80 lbs).
Total weight: 5065 lbs.
Tongue Weight 405 lbs
Axle Weight 4660 lbs

At the time I also had a spare tire, anchor and prop, tools, fishing gear, supplies, etc. If I were to guess, I'd say stuff like that probably counted for at least 500 lbs of the weight. Colby
 
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