Help! with one wheel heating

[JCWDCW]

All theory aside, as long as the terminations make good contact with all the strands at each end, surface corrosion won't be much of a factor. But in practice, some current crosses from strand to strand along the length of the wire and if the contact with the termination only catches half the strands then there will be some extra resistance. This is the one reason why you need to clean each strand of dirty or corroded wire be fore tightening the screw or crimping the 'stakon'. If we were talking high voltage, surface corrosion might be more of a factor as I believe high voltage/ current travels on the surface of the wire.

You were having trouble with grabby brakes or one brake dragging. Poor voltage and low current would not seem to be the cause. All your work will pay off in vastly improved reliability and smooth operation. We'll need to wait and see if the problem was corrected. If one wheel was not braking due to poor wiring, maybe the other wheel simply picked up the slack using the available voltage/current to that side.
JCW

[DaKarch]

After: new bearings, complete wire overhaul, 2 new backing plates etc etc

Still the same thing

Last ditch effort tonight I remember changing old school drum brakes with my Dad and always wire brushing the contact surfaces. I also checked to see if the drum was magnetized (its not).

So I removed the paint from the contact surfaces (which could have caused a sticky condition) and polished the metal. Added some white grease reassembled and down the road....that wheel actually ran cooler the entire time until I got close to home and started using the brakes and up the temps went....

Parked it an i could smell the brakes on that wheel. Left the cap off and the heat didnt seem to be coming from the bearing but the outside drum was too hot to touch....so the brake is dragging.

I checked the alignment for the heck of it and the wheels are good. Haven't tried new brake material yet.... maybe that's it. Other 3 wheels have napa shoes and the hot wheel has dexter shoes.

If anyone out there is pulling their passenger front axle hub would you send me a picture or post a picture of the assembly? When I did the road repair last summer did I put the first assembly on one hole off?

I surrender. ok quitting is not part of my personality..that was a moment of weakness.

[SpletKay06]

Brakes should always be replaced as pairs. If not they wont brake evenly and cause one side to work harder then the other. You also need to measure the drum as they should be the exact same size aka new one is smaller internally than a worn out drum and well brake harder. Also look for glazing and micro fractures in the drums.

[Caffeinated]

Not really suggesting this, as it's easy to spend other people's money, but if it were me, I'd be thinking about upgrading to disk brakes about now.

Mike

[DaKarch]

Like I said, I don't give up

Swapped the passenger side front shoes (new assembly) with the passenger side rear shoes.

Heat seems to have followed the shoes. Not quite as drastic as the new hub new baking plate assembly. But I could smell the brakes from the rear wheel now. I did not drive quite as long either so maybe that has something to do with it.

Will test drive a few more times and see what happens.

[DaKarch]

2 more drives so far. Heat has followed the shoes. Put an infrared thermometer today and the outer hub at outer bearing was about 20 degree hotter and the outer drum was 110 to 147. Even got the drum to about 250 with hard breaking on the dexter shoes. Whereas the Napa shoes where around 178 at that point.

[DaKarch]

Replaced the dexter shoe with a new napa UP-4002 which are the shoes on the rear axle. Same test drive as all the other times. No heat issues.

The new dexter brake assembly and drum with napa shoe was a few degrees hotter at the tire temp and the drum was 300F when I parked it as compared to 260 on the old drum. But no brake smell other than a slight smell from the new shoe.

On the highway the tires all ran within a few degrees of each other. Temps off highway had a 4 degree difference at the highest temps.

Will wait for a few more runs before I call this solved.

__________________________________________________ _________

A little of what I have learned about trailer brake shoes:

Napa has 2 kits that fit 12x2 up-4002 (will fit 6k or 7K) and up-4005 (7K maybe) no local napa could tell me what the actual brake material was rated for and the info was not on the box.

Dexter has 2 part numbers for shoes one is 6K and other is 7K

Tekonsha has a 5000-DX (?K) and a 5010 which is labeled as 7K

Redline has a will fit 6k and 7k

The backing plate assembly I replaced last summer was labeled 7K

[SpletKay06]

Once again replace brakes in pairs

[DaKarch]

"Place the brakes in pairs"

My local Airstream dealer replace one shoe with a Tekonsha 5000-DX. When I asked shouldn't I do at least the axle on both sides the response was "no, the other side looks like new"

I think a more accurate statement is match the same braking material. I suspect if I put new Dexter assemblies on both sides the front axle would have generated more heat than the rear axle. Maybe not enough to raise alarm.

[switz]

On the 23D, we replaced all four sets of brake shoes at the same time from the same vendor. They were later replaced with the upgrade to auto-adjust backing plates on all four wheels.