[AT] Brake Controller

[Don Bowen]

jahaze at aol.com wrote:
> Has anyone ever had a brake controlled just quit working?  Or should my attention be focused on the trailer instead?
>   
The brakes on my trailer failed at the most inopportune time, just as I 
was heading down a steep Ozark gravel hill.  One side was a drop off and 
the other a bank.  I could not feather the tow vehicle brakes, they 
would just slide so it was slide the brakes until it got too close to 
the edge, let up enough for the whole thing to jerk toward the bank, 
repeat.  I finally got it stopped on a less steep part.  I had a friend 
come down and chain his pickup to the back of the trailer and we both 
went down slowly.

http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/December%2009/images/hill.jpg
The fun hill.

The brakes had been grabbing that morning, they would grab then work 
normally.  Once I calmed down enough to work on things I found that one 
of the contacts on the trailer socket had bent to where it barely made 
contact.  I think what was happening was that when I applied the brakes 
there was no contact but the plug would then make contact causing the 
brakes to grab.  It eventually stopped making contact on the very steep 
hill.  The fix is to replace the trailer socket on the pickup and maybe 
the plug on the trailer.

-- 
Don Bowen           KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html