New brakes - rims getting hot!

[hd883chopper]

27' Trail Rite Tandem axel w/ surge drum brakes:

Hey everyone,

Got a question. I recently did a full brake and maintenance job on my Tandem Axel Trailer, including new brake shoes, races, bearings (used Moray's grease), new tires and bled the brake lines.

The only thing that bothers me is that after taking a little test run, my left rear rim gets pretty hot. Hotter than the others. I'm assuming that it's due to the brakes being applied to the drum and transferring the heat to the rim, but it's so much hotter than the others.

The other three rims are just a little warm.

The brake adjuster gadget at the bottom of the drum is bottomed out, so there's no more room to bring the pads further away from the drum.

Is this sort of stuff normal break-in for new shoes?? This was my first brake job on a trailer.

Thanks,
HD

 

[DeepBlue2010]

Re: New brakes - rims getting hot!

Jack up the trailer and try to spin the wheel by hand. If it doesn?t turn freely ? with very little resistance ? the adjuster or the whole assembly of this wheel was not done right. Don?t mean to offend you by this question, but are your sure the adjuster is all the way in or all the way out?

 

[hd883chopper]

Re: New brakes - rims getting hot!

Jack up the trailer and try to spin the wheel by hand. If it doesn?t turn freely ? with very little resistance ? the adjuster or the whole assembly of this wheel was not done right. Don?t mean to offend you by this question, but are your sure the adjuster is all the way in or all the way out?

No offense taken at all DeepBlue, just looking for some answers.

It does spin pretty free. You can hear a slight amount of scuffing or drag, but it's not enough to stop the tire. Wheel will easily make 4 or 5 revolutions.

I suppose it could be an adjuster issue. I did reinstall like the other three and I am positive it is backed down all the way. I just know if I could back it down another 16th of and inch I could eliminate 100% of the scuffing sound. Although I'm not positive that eliminating the scuffing sound is the root cause of my issue anyway.

One thing one guy mentioned to me was that perhaps I had the axel nut on too tight. So I jacked it up and backed that nut off just a smidge. Reinstalled the castle nut and I'll take it for a test pull in a few hours. Man...I hope that works!