Advice on towing

[azflycaster]

Without a brake controller, you had no trailer brakes. Dangerous and illegal.

[BayouBiker]

Originally Posted by Ny3299

Thank you for the input.

I towed the 22’ Bambi without a WDH or sway bar, and without a brake controller and didn’t have any issues. I was wondering if I actually benefitted from some trailer braking without the actual controller. I mean, with the 7 pin plug, doesn’t that activate the trailer brakes a little bit? And a controller would only enable further adjustment to the vehicle/trailer brake percentages, right? Anyway, I was running 70 mph at 2000 rpms and didn’t even feel the trailer. Sway started at slightly higher speeds so 70 was my max for this setup.

No the standard 7 pin controller does not activate the trailer brakes at all.

The controller when present and connected applies about 1 volt to the brake circuit constantly so that it is able to detect that a trailer is present. this is not enough to activate the brakes, then it applies an additional voltage proportional to vehicle deceleration to activate the brakes. You adjust the gain of the controller to increase the degree of proportionality and resulting sensitivity.

[Bobbo]

Originally Posted by Ny3299

I was wondering if I actually benefitted from some trailer braking without the actual controller. I mean, with the 7 pin plug, doesn’t that activate the trailer brakes a little bit?

All the 7 pin connector does is connect the brake controller to the trailer brakes. It provides no other benefit as far as braking is concerned.