need more braking

Glad to hear. Which tribe are you from?

 

Man if your brakes on that 2500# trailer are working properly, you should have absolutely zero issues with stock brakes on your taco.

Did you buy that camper new? Did you "burn in" the brakes? Like get them so hot that they start smoking?

I tow a 6x12x7 enclosed and my Prodigy P2 is set up at like 50% capacity. I can stop my truck and trailer very quick if i needed to. My truck is not stock. 33's, 2" lift, and 550# constant weight. If i go close to 100% braking on my trailer, it will slow down my truck and trailer no problem.

This was my first trailer with brakes and the place where i bought it from never told me to "burn in" the brakes. When i first got my trailer, i thought the brakes weren't working. I called them and explained the situation, they said you gotta get the brakes very hot in order to "break them in". I wish they told me that when I picked up the trailer cuz I could've been a danger on the road.

So i took the trailer downhill, used only trailer brakes and got them smoking hot. Holy man they worked really good after.

 

I am almost certain thats the issue.

 

Welcome to the forum

As others have said start with the trailer brakes.

 

Agree with trailer brakes 1st.

But also verification the truck rear brakes are properly adjusted. Many are not, placing all the work up front.

 

Your controller should be able apply the trailer brakes manually go for a ride and give it a try where there is no traffic because the brake lights won't work.

 

I vote for checking your trailer brakes too.

Other thoughts:

- How hard are you pressing the brake pedal during long descents? Ideally it should be zero except for intermittent short periods.
- Have you had the runout of your front discs and rear drums measured?
- Are electric trailer brakes capable of being applied while engine braking? I’m only familiar with surge brakes.

 

I tow a 3800lb trailer and did a 1700kms trip to the Cariboo of B.C. last summer. My trailer is a tandem axle and the brakes are in perfect working order. We even did the Duffy Lake Road which is a 5 km downhill at 18% at one point. I did upgrade my front brakes to the factory big brake kit about a month before my trip. 4Runner disc's and calipers. I never had any issues with the brakes. The big thing is to keep your speed down. It also helps to gear down and use engine braking to control your decent.



I do have the slotted rotors from Raybestos, but they are wearing funny and when they need to be replaced they will be factory style rotors.

I am running a Redarc brake controller. And before I go anywhere, I do a trailer brake check. I remove the break-away plug from the trailer to apply the brakes and do a tug test. Then reinsert it and do a service brake test with the brake controller. I also do this at every brake check location even though I am under wieght and not required. I would rather find a problem before hand then during a long mountainous downhill run.

 

Speed freak, I was considering that brand and style rotor recently. What funny wear are you experiencing?

 

Now, this is being prudent and responsible.

 

There is 2 grooves wearing into the rotors. It is on both and on both sides. I noticed it in April when I did my winter tires swap. Now, I wouldn't consider myself hard on my brake. The originals, I changed at 110,000kms and it wasn't really needed yet. I just knew I would be towing and felt new brakes would be better than worn brakes.

 

that's going to be from the horizontal orientation of the slots.

a slot design like this will have a lot better wear characteristics, with the added benefit of the pad scraping that you upgraded to slotted rotors for to begin with.



the whole idea with slotted rotors is to wipe the brake pads during application to ensure that there's always a clean/fresh layer of pad material to perform the braking.

they generally result in a lot more dust, and lower pad life, because they're cutting into the pads, but will also offer a more consistent brake response.