Drum vs. Disc for towing

[dsrtrcr01]

Has this been addressed already in another thread? I did not see it. Which would be better for towing. I see alot on other sections about which is better and I was wondering what the actual towing guru's thought. for stopping ability which is better rear disc or rear drum? Or is it not that big a deal because your front brakes do most (I think 75%) of your stopping?

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by dsrtrcr01

Has this been addressed already in another thread? I did not see it. Which would be better for towing. I see alot on other sections about which is better and I was wondering what the actual towing guru's thought. for stopping ability which is better rear disc or rear drum? Or is it not that big a deal because your front brakes do most (I think 75%) of your stopping?

Drum or disc on the back wheels of the tow vehicle will be pretty much irrelevant if the trailer has good brakes (as it should). Reason: Trailer brakes are for stopping the trailer; truck brakes are for stopping the truck (and not the trailer). If the truck stops well with drum brakes when not towing, it should stop just as well when towing because trailer's brakes should be doing the trailer braking.

OTOH, if the trailer doesn't have any brakes...and the truck has to provide braking for both truck and trailer, then having disc brakes on the rear of the truck could, repeat could, make a difference simply because disc brakes are more fade resistant when hot. However, if the choice is to spend money upgrading the truck's brakes to disc...or putting brakes on the trailer, the no-brainer decision is to install brakes on the trailer because that will do the most good.

And finally there's the case where the trailer does have brakes but they're simply not handling all of the trailer's braking requirements. This is the situation I'm facing. My travel trailer, like most travel trailers, uses electromagnetic brakes (controlled by a Prodigy brake controller). Even with the Prodigy's gain close to the max, my Tundra is definitely doing some (maybe 20%) of the trailer braking. My first step to rectify this will be to make sure the Prodigy controller is providing sufficient voltage/current to the trailer's brake solenoids. If it isn't, it'll be a whole cheaper to swap to another controller (Jordan or the MasterBrake BrakeSmart) than to retrofit disc brakes. But if the controller is performing correctly, my next step will be to retrofit electrohydraulic disc brakes onto the trailer rather than to the rear of the truck. It's not only cheaper to put disc brakes on my trailer than on my truck but the gains in towing will be substantially more if the trailer gets the disc brakes instead of the truck. And the truck stops just fine with drum brakes when not towing.

[tomhole]

Ray,

I feel embarrased to ask the guru this, but did you adjust the trailer brakes? I had an issue where my pups brakes had dropped off in performance after 6 months or so and I had to adjust them to get full braking capability back.

My guess is you knew all that, but I feel kinda guruish for posting it anyway.

Tom

[j4x4ar3]

Personal opinion on this one is that I would rather have a combination of both. My 5000# trailer has drums (one because they're cheaper and easier to install on a trailer) but also because drums have better holding power on hills and such. Disc's definitely have better stopping power though. With my Tacoma I can appreciate disc's on the front where a majority of the braking takes place and drums on the rear to help hold me on hills when I have my trailer attached. With most trailer brake controllers today, once stopped they trailer brakes release for the most part. This is due to the fact that the brake controller (at least mine) works on sensing deceleration. Once stopped it feels it doesn't need to apply the brakes anymore. Anyway.. just my opinion.

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by tomhole

Ray,

I feel embarrased to ask the guru this, but did you adjust the trailer brakes? I had an issue where my pups brakes had dropped off in performance after 6 months or so and I had to adjust them to get full braking capability back.

My guess is you knew all that, but I feel kinda guruish for posting it anyway.

Tom

No need to feel embarrassed...and your question does indeed indicate nicely developing guru-ishness. Wanna help me moderate this forum and become an official guru? If interested, send me a PM.

But getting to the gist of the question, yes, I do indeed adjust the trailer's brakes (fairly tightly too) every 3000 miles or so. I do concur with need to do this properly...I left brake adjustment up to my RV dealer one season and they adjusted them so loosely there was very little trailer braking. I suspect this was deliberate to minimize the slight scraping noise that a fairly tightly adjusted brake makes in normal rotation.

[denverbikeguy]

Other than the popup ads, here is a great two-page article on maintaining your trailer's brakes, hubs, and such:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...03/ai_n9207791