Grade Brake for Workhorse

[crazy jim]

I may have encountered my last brake failure on my 2003 Fleetwood Bounder. If you don't have to use them everytime you descend a hill or in my case, the Cascade Mountains, wear is minimal. I just had a "grade brake" installed on my coach by Brazel's Performance RV in Centralia Washington. In four days time, they completely converted the Allison 5 speed w/o brake grade , to an awesome unit with the "grade brake" feature. Now when coming down any incline, a tap on the brake pedal and the Allison transmission downshifts without touching anything, need more slowing assistance? Just hit the brake pedal again, it will downshift again. It will release upon acceleration and reset itself for the next hill. They installed(nicely)a control swith on the dash panel, so the grade brake can be turned on/off at will. It is even better in congested freeway driving, when that idiot pulls out in front of you or traffic slows, hit the brakes an the transmission drops a gear or two and really helps slow the beast down. So basically I now leave the switch on for a safer trip and aided braking when towing my mini van. Thanks to Mike and the great crew at Brazel's Performance RV in Centralia Washington for a clean professional upgrade to my coach and a peace of mind knowing it's there and knowing it's capabilities.

[tech@brazelsrv]

Thanks for the kind words Jim. Since yours was the first coach we did, it took us a little longer to do (test drives and working out the glitches) We can perform the complete upgrade in about 3 hours, depending on the coach configuration. This upgrade is basically the same system that Allison installs on the 2005 and newer coaches with a couple of modifications that we've added to make it more effective.

[scuffy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech@brazelsrv Thanks for the kind words Jim. Since yours was the first coach we did, it took us a little longer to do (test drives and working out the glitches) We can perform the complete upgrade in about 3 hours, depending on the coach configuration. This upgrade is basically the same system that Allison installs on the 2005 and newer coaches with a couple of modifications that we've added to make it more effective.

can you add the mods to an 05 to make my grade brake work better>

[George Z]

Quote:

Originally Posted by scuffy can you add the mods to an 05 to make my grade brake work better>

Also curious and what would be the improvement.

George

[tech@brazelsrv]

We've set it up to drop it out of O/D as soon as the brake pedal is applied regardless of the grade (the OE grade brake didn't do this unless you were going down a grade and applied the brake pedal for a few seconds) We also set the upshift to overdrive under light load at 51 mph rather than 57mph. And yes, we can make the modification to 2005 and newer.

[bdaball]

Can you do an upshift @51MPH only without buying the entire grade brake package?
Stupid question, If you are a "pedal pumper" going downhill will the grade brake down shift each time you press the pedal?

[DAN L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech@brazelsrv We've set it up to drop it out of O/D as soon as the brake pedal is applied regardless of the grade (the OE grade brake didn't do this unless you were going down a grade and applied the brake pedal for a few seconds) We also set the upshift to overdrive under light load at 51 mph rather than 57mph. And yes, we can make the modification to 2005 and newer.

steve,
what is the installed price?

[Gotta_P]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tech@brazelsrv We've set it up to drop it out of O/D as soon as the brake pedal is applied regardless of the grade (the OE grade brake didn't do this unless you were going down a grade and applied the brake pedal for a few seconds) We also set the upshift to overdrive under light load at 51 mph rather than 57mph. And yes, we can make the modification to 2005 and newer.

Geez, I wish you guys were closer! I live in GA, and there are several products you offer that I would love to have added to my MH! You guys planning to be in Perry, GA for any Rally or Show in the up-coming year? Here's my wish list:

UltraPower
Grade Brake Mod
Rear Track thingy

Thanks...

[Breezeman]

Hey Gotta_P,

Same here man. I'm in South GA here. Would love to add a few upgrades here also.
Man that would be long trip to WA.

Would be one heck of a "road trip" for us huh?

Larry

[JonBrazel]

Come take a visit of the Pacific Northwest...the scenery will not disappoint!

[wa8yxm]

My 2005 came with Grade Brake already. Took me a while to figure out how to use it (Thanks to other members here who explained it to me) but I do agree... One nice feature of the Allison Tranny.

Turns out a friend of mine had some things to do in the Quality Control department over at Allison.. He made one of the cold rooms where they torture test stuff to temps you and I will never see.

Small parts get tested in the room he built.

When they are done,, Allison mounts the full tranny on a semi engine, drives it into a much larger cold room and lets it "Cold soak" and then fires up the Tractor at something like MINUS 40 Degrees and tries their darndest to destroy that slush box.

If they succeed... it's back to the drawing board!

Now that's a good trans

(They use a hot room too)

[jdsr]

I hope no one takes this the wrong way but to spend 500 dollors to get the tranny to downshift/upshift when I can do itmyself in about a second doesnt make sence to me. I mean there's no work involved, just move the shifter arm. Maybe there's more to it so if im wrong dont take it as Im slamming this product I just dont get it. If you guys that have bought it like it than thats all that matters.

[JonBrazel]

Maybe you wouldn't have so many brake problems if you had it JDSR....

One thing to ponder about...is that we haven't performed a single interim repair on an '05 or newer chassis equipped with the factory grade brake...whereas we have done about 40 on '04 and older.

[Doggy Daddy]

Love my Grade Brake. It came as a standard equipment on my Outlaw.