Just wanted to ask around if anyone has ever experienced or heard of a catastrophic failure in any type of trailer disc brake conversion like below?
The Story:
This past Thurs evening, we’re pulling our 42’ Jayco North Point 377 RLBH with <2.5 yrs/25k Kodiak disc brake miles into the second rest area of the day, entering at 15 mph, and come to a stop...and it took a good bit of pedal pressure to do it. The trailer was really pushing us. I put in drive again and press the BrakeSmart controller button and NOTHING as we go forward another 30’. I backed it up to the original stop. First, I checked the TV master cylinder, it’s full. I go back to the camper and see this long fresh fluid trail and find this:
This is the driver side front axle wheel. Notice the position of the caliper. It’s supposed to be at the 9 o’clock trailing position, not at 6. All five caliper mounting bracket studs are gone! The brake hose was ripped from the caliper now hanging in front of the axle. I searched all around for stud remnants (should be 10) but couldn’t find any. I walked our entrance path back another 200 yards or so...no fresh fluid trail or stud remnants. We were very fortunate this mishap happened at a rest area. It rained on us twice during the two hours it took to figure out a bandaid solution, as the caliper was contacting/dragging the inner wheel and that would throw a hell of a spark or fire display had we not have discovered this failure and continued. I ended up finding two matching bolt and nuts(smaller) in my spare collection to attach the caliper bracket back at 9 o’clock thru two accessible holes without having to remove the rotor. I did remove the tire and found minimal gouging scratches inside the wheel. I was a completely soaked dirty greasy pig after the ordeal. Fortunately, I have my closet with me.
Before leaving, I had the DW press hard on the brake to find no more fluid coming from the line. So that long trail of fluid in that parking lane was it. As you can see in the pic it really splattered the tire and wheel thoroughly.
I’m finding this to be a very rare incident and still won’t take anything for these fabulous disc brakes on our trailer. They saved us inside 30 days of install on a frightening near head on collision(wrongway driver)!
Kodiak brake kit came from ETrailer and do not come with bracket mounting studs. It’s accepted the factory axle drum brake studs are reused. I’ve 7k Lippert axles. But in this case I remember the mechanic saying they had to get longer studs, so I’m not sure who’s really at fault, that this was an unfortunate happen stance.
I welcome all replies if anyone has seen/heard this happen.
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