How will brakes behave with wrong "type" setting

[D2Reid]

So, here I am, at my campsite, having just completed a brake adjustment on all four wheels, and I could not believe (or maybe I could) how far out of adjustment they were. I'm sure that they were not adjusted since Dexter built the axles. Why can't service people actually listen to customer's problems? There were other issues that I can rant about, but this one was pretty important.

I am thinking this will be tooman.dustins issue also. With voltage going to all four tires they should react the same. There is the grease on the drum issuse, but I think he said he pulled them and inspected them. Rant away, that's why we are here, so long as you follow the forums etiquette rules... please.

PS I hate drum brakes and have changed mine to disk as soon as I could afford it. My rant for the day.

[That 1 Ron]

I’m a Tundra owner and can tell you that the brake controller setting should definitely be on electric only. I believe there’s also an update/reflash for the OEM brake controller from Toyota that is supposed to make it work better. I’m not 100% sure on this because I haven’t made time to go have it done (and the dealerships here are terrible-that’s another story). I can say that I’m not really a fan of the toyota factory brake controller but I haven’t changed mine out, yet. On the electric only setting, I have mine turned up to 9.5 to 10 usually which seems to work good with my Imagine trailer but that seems awful high just to get it to work right. So don’t be surprised if you have to set your controller high as well.

Second, you really should try to get your trailer level when towing. Not only will it be difficult to set the brakes correctly with it not level, it can also lead to unstable handling going down the road.

Third, you may want to take the wheels and drums off and make sure you don’t have something else going on with the bakes.

[bflooks]

The comment above about a software updste for the integrated brake controller is true. Well documented and a Google search will bring many results on the Tundra forums.

That said, OP, it appears many feel the update still doesnt give the performance they expect out of their integrated controller and remove and replace with an aftermarket like the Tekonsha P3 or other. There are even adapters so it fits in the factory location.

Not advocating for it, but it seems to be a common solution. 18+ becomes a wiring challenge but earlier models appear to be almost plug and play. Good luck!

[AZMike]

I am thinking this will be tooman.dustins issue also. With voltage going to all four tires they should react the same. There is the grease on the drum issuse, but I think he said he pulled them and inspected them. Rant away, that's why we are here, so long as you follow the forums etiquette rules... please.

PS I hate drum brakes and have changed mine to disk as soon as I could afford it. My rant for the day.

So, just an update on my rant (brake issue)...After adjusting, my brakes now work perfectly. Another example of if you want something done correctly, you have to do it yourself.

[Bungy]

Yep, electric would be the correct setting because that's all your trailer brakes are is electric. There are no hydraulic components. As far as the progressive braking goes, if the controller in your Tundra is anything like a Prodigy, then there is a little pendulum in the controller. So you will have your base brake setting voltage. When you're going down the road, if you really get on the brakes in your Tundra, the pendulum in the controller swings forward adding power to the trailer brakes. As the forward inertia subsides and you come to a stop, the pendulum comes back to it's original position and you are once again back to your base power setting/voltage on your controller.

One thing comes to mind. Have you checked for leaking grease seals which would lead to grease on your front axle? Grease on the brake pads can cause tires to grab and lock up.

Just an FYI, the Prodigy line of brake controllers do not use a pendulum to detect vehicle deceleration, they use an accelerometer-type motion sensing system.

[toolman.dustin]

So, just an update on my rant (brake issue)...After adjusting, my brakes now work perfectly. Another example of if you want something done correctly, you have to do it yourself.

I agree with the "you have to do it yourself".

Update on my braking problem while here in Brownsville: Still not resolved but eliminating things.
Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback.

The original problem is, my front 2 brakes lock up when I apply any amount of braking. Also, the original question was: how would the electric brakes behave if the truck brake controller was accidently set to electric over hydraulic (EOH)? From the replies I’ve received nobody has ever tried that. So that’s something I’ll do once I get this sorted out.

I haven’t identified the actual problem yet, but I’m making progress despite the wind, rain, a trip to the Mexican swap meets in Harlingen and occasional days going fishing in the surf. Much fun. My wife caught a 32” black tip shark that resulted in a lot of fun for her. Apparently, they are very good eating, but she turned it loose. Hopefully, it won’t bite her the next time we go fishing. Then there’s trips out to Boca Chica Beach to monitor the SpaceX Rocket progress. Very amazing, when driving east on hyw 4 to the coast you drive right through the middle of the SpaceX facility and eventually you drive to within 600’ of the rocket sitting on the launch pad. FYI, the state closes the entire highway on days SpaceX is testing or launching. Big launch date is Monday the 25th so will definitely go watch that.

But I digress: First a history lesson, the update is below labeled UPDATE:
HISTORY LESSON: What I didn’t tell you in the original message was:
These are new axles and with less than 50 miles on them when I left Kansas to come to Brownsville. The old 4400 lb axles had 10” brakes and behaved exactly like you would expect. But I replaced them with 6000lb axles after my rear tires wore out in just 6000 miles. According to my Toyota dealer my 2016 Tundra truck has the new and improved brake controller software update. But, there’s no way for me to verify that, it’s not user accessible. But I had no problems at all before installing these new axles, so my focus is on the new axle brakes.

At install, when I drove, they just didn’t feel like they had much braking power. These are self adjusting brakes, but maybe they need to be manually adjusted first. So, after 10-15 miles I came home and adjusted the brakes. Drove around some more and they were still not stopping any better.

These are also “EZ-Lube Axles”, So I removed the drums to inspect. Three of the four bearings had leaked grease that had dripped onto the top of the magnet. One of those there had oozed onto the front of the magnet and onto about ½” of the 2” wide brake shoe. None of the others had contaminated brake shoes.

So, Can you clean grease from brake shoes? Well, this is one of those questions that divides the world into two camps. Seems unlikely to me but a search of the ever wise internet finds hundreds of people who claim it’s not only possible but they done it! So, it’s at least worth a try since new brake shoes are $67 per pair.

So, I scrubbed all 4 pairs of shoes with cleaner and cleaned all 4 drums with cleaner. Repacked all the bearings and removed about 1.5 lbs of excess grease because I’ll never trust the EZ-Lub hubs again.

Put it all back together and drove around. That’s when the brake grabbing began. If the brakes are cool they don’t lock up. But after several seconds of braking they get warm and just lock up.

UPDATE – So here’s the update. I’ve confirmed that voltages is reaching all 4 magnets and each magnet is drawing about 1.5 amps of current. Numerous web searches say they should draw 3 amps but none of those say whether that’s 3 amps each or 3 amps per axle, but regardless, they are all making magnet juice.

I’ve removed all 4 drums (again) and discovered 3 of the 4 have once again oozed grease from the rear seal, but none had dripped grease onto the magnet or inside of the drum. So, I need to order new seals and replace these ASAP.

Here’s the NEW NEWS: 3 of the 4 pairs of shoes look very bad. Both of the shoes on the front axle look like they are falling apart. I don’t know if that’s from the brake cleaner or from heat or what. Both have a date code of June 2020. The rear brake shoes have a date code of July 2020.

Attached is a photo of the front shoes.

At this point I’m going to ask Dexter to supply me with replacement brake shoes and new seals. I’ll go from there.

Thanks again for all the feedback. I’ll post an update sometime in the future.

Dustin

[AZMike]

Wow. From what I've been reading the past couple of months, the general opinion is that the factory Tundra brake controller is generally a POS. I never had one, just came across many complaints. I would install an aftermarket controller if I were you along with your requests from Dexter.