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TowingDiscussions related to towing and towing products.
This is a discussion thread titled "First Trip with Fifth Wheel...", within the Towing forum, part of the Technical & Vehicle Assistance Forums category.
Well we did it. We took our 28 ft. Cougar Fifth Wheel out for our first 3-day weekend. The new Firestone Ride Rite airbags sure made a difference! We inflated to 30 lbs and everything handled beautifully. We also had bought 10 ply tires earlier. We did have some problems with our new Tekonsha P3 installer however. We were just ready to take off and noticed that the P3 display said No Brakes - short to battery. Luckily for us it was Friday and Ballews Hitch in Tacoma was open. Evidently we weren't getting a good connection to the trailer plug to our truck. They just used a screwdriver to bend the prongs inward and that did the trick. Now this is going to sound mighty dumb....but we're really newbies to this stuff. In trying to adjust our controller, we can't decide what the sound is like when "the brakes lock up", so we decided when they make a skidding sound that was locking up. We set our controller to 5.7 Boost 2. That worked ok till we made quick stops, then the trailer brakes made this awful grinding sound as it came to a stop. Now we think that the grinding sound is "when they lock up", not the tire skidding sound we were listening for before. So on the way home we changed the setting to 6.0, was better but still made the grinding sound on sudden stop. We're learning is all I can say! Mileage was 10.9 but we didn't have to climb many hills. We were satisfied with that. All in all our weekend was great, the casino though didn't like us! We did visit our local Eagles Club at Ocean Shores and did some Karaoke. We love our trailer and love our Tundra. We sure got alot of nice commens on our setup. We are looking forward to many more trips this summer (that is if we can get our P3 settings figured out!). Oh, camera didn't work this weekend (operator problem). We're taking our trailer to the dealer we bought it from to make some minor repairs we noticed needed this weekend. Will take pictures then and share. Thanks for listening...anyone with tips on adjusting our P3...we are open to them!
On the P-3 controller. It sounds like to me that you may have the setting too low & the brakes are just noisy because they're new. Maybe?
5.7 at Boost 2 seems quite low to me.
Our trailer weighs in at 7500 mostly loaded with 1300lbs on the truck so about 6000lbs on the tires. I have ours set at 7.0 and boost 2 which seems about perfect without locking the tires. But all trailers may not be the same, especially since they are drum type brakes. However, my bro's exact same setup is set the same as mine, so dunno.
Is your trailer nose high, or is it quite level when hooked up? If it's nose high, the front brakes will lock up on sudden stops (happened to me).
I'm new to the controller as well, but this is my experience anyway.
The howling sound (in my experience anyway), is normal on occasion. Mine don't do it all the time, but once in a while it will. It's usually at slow speeds w/ hard braking.
Well we did it. We took our 28 ft. Cougar Fifth Wheel out for our first 3-day weekend. The new Firestone Ride Rite airbags sure made a difference! We inflated to 30 lbs and everything handled beautifully. We also had bought 10 ply tires earlier. We did have some problems with our new Tekonsha P3 installer however. We were just ready to take off and noticed that the P3 display said No Brakes - short to battery. Luckily for us it was Friday and Ballews Hitch in Tacoma was open. Evidently we weren't getting a good connection to the trailer plug to our truck. They just used a screwdriver to bend the prongs inward and that did the trick. Now this is going to sound mighty dumb....but we're really newbies to this stuff. In trying to adjust our controller, we can't decide what the sound is like when "the brakes lock up", so we decided when they make a skidding sound that was locking up. We set our controller to 5.7 Boost 2. That worked ok till we made quick stops, then the trailer brakes made this awful grinding sound as it came to a stop. Now we think that the grinding sound is "when they lock up", not the tire skidding sound we were listening for before. So on the way home we changed the setting to 6.0, was better but still made the grinding sound on sudden stop. We're learning is all I can say! Mileage was 10.9 but we didn't have to climb many hills. We were satisfied with that. All in all our weekend was great, the casino though didn't like us! We did visit our local Eagles Club at Ocean Shores and did some Karaoke. We love our trailer and love our Tundra. We sure got alot of nice commens on our setup. We are looking forward to many more trips this summer (that is if we can get our P3 settings figured out!). Oh, camera didn't work this weekend (operator problem). We're taking our trailer to the dealer we bought it from to make some minor repairs we noticed needed this weekend. Will take pictures then and share. Thanks for listening...anyone with tips on adjusting our P3...we are open to them!
We just made out maiden voyage too. What a great truck.
Can you eloborate on the 10 ply tires? Brand, ect.
We just made out maiden voyage too. What a great truck.
Can you eloborate on the 10 ply tires? Brand, ect.
Thanks,
Bill
Sure. We bought Cooper Discoverer ATR Load Range E. The truck rides a little rougher than before, but not much and we feel much safer using tires that can withstand the weight on the bed of the truck. Hope this helps.
The sound is definitely a loud grinding / scraping sound. Our trailer weight empty is 7,000 lbs and hitch weight 1,140. Last night we towed the trailer in the rain to the RV dealer to repair some minor problems discovered while we camped this last weekend. We set the P3 to 7.0, load boost 2. The grinding/scraping sound stopped! The trailer brakes did seem to grab some though on quick stops, so we backed off to 6.7. We'll probably try 7 again when its not raining. A friend who is quite knowledgable on fifth wheel trailers said that our truck (as most new ones) have ABS brakes and travel trailers do not. So when it rains, the truck handles much differently and the trailer will not match up to it. Anyway, when it's dry, we'll test drive again til the brakes lockup to see what our exact setting should be (now that we know what the brakes locking sound is . Thanks for all of your help and everyone else on this site. It's so helpful!
I have 34 foot Jayco dry weight about 8500 pounds...I set to 8V and boost 2. This setup came from a series of hard stops and listening for lockup.
Also, once broken in, you want to lift the wheel and handset your electric brake adjustment. Just pop the rubber cover off the back and tighten it till wheel is locked, then backoff until you can just feel the brake...not quite free spinning... then all the wheels will act in concert.
If you had a rattle or grinding noise, I would pop the wheel and make sure nothing is wrong...
I have 34 foot Jayco dry weight about 8500 pounds...I set to 8V and boost 2. This setup came from a series of hard stops and listening for lockup.
Also, once broken in, you want to lift the wheel and handset your electric brake adjustment. Just pop the rubber cover off the back and tighten it till wheel is locked, then backoff until you can just feel the brake...not quite free spinning... then all the wheels will act in concert.
If you had a rattle or grinding noise, I would pop the wheel and make sure nothing is wrong...
Hi Gary,
Thanks for the input. We felt really stupid. We started at 6V which is what the instructions say and went downward from there, not realizing we should actually go upward. Our last setting was 7.2V, Boost 2. We'll do some more finetuning when we are out on Memorial Day holiday. Once we did the 7.2V, all that screetching noise stopped and everything seemed to work great. The weight of our trailer is 7000lbs, pin 1140 unloaded. We may set up higher. So far now that we have a better idea of how it works, we really like the P3. This site is great and has really helped us figure things out, thanks to people like you.
First Trip with Fifth Wheel...
Re: First Trip with Fifth Wheel...
. Thanks for all of your help and everyone else on this site. It's so helpful!
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