Nobody’s Perfect (as M. Pointed Out)

So, spent about 2 hours washing the gunk of Blue Streak after our last ‘Boondock’ trip. I like to start a new “glamping” trip with a clean unit (inside and out). We loaded up all the provisions and were set to go first thing the next morning.😎

Next morning we loaded the fridge, backed-up Red Dragon, hitched up, stepped on the gas and the rig would not move! The brakes on Blue Streak were frozen solid.🤬

For the life of me I could not figure out what the #@&$# was the matter!😖

Need Help!

So I called my friend Rick Denis, a fellow travel trailer owner as well a my mechanic for 20 years and said, “HELP”. He suggested two possibilities; A) it’s an electronic issue between the truck and the trailer, or B) it’s an issue with the trailer’s electrics.

First test was to disconnect the 7 pin umbilical between the trailer and truck to see if the electric brakes released. Did that, no change. This means the problem is with the trailer electrics.

So then I began to look at all the reasons the electric brakes could be activated. After about 10 minutes I discovered that the break-away-pin had been “partially” pull out, just enough to activate the electric brakes. Since I had never really looked closely at, played with this “pin,” to know how far it needed to be “pulled out” allowing the brakes to activate.  I just didn’t noticed it sticking out at a glance (nobody’s perfect).🙄

I push the pin completely in and ‘voila’ the brakes released. Now the question is: ‘how the %#@&# did that happen?’ The reason this was an important question to answer is so I don’t have it happen again. Also, is this now something I need to add to my ‘Ready To Go Check List’ ?

Finding The Answer

As I thought through the possibilities, it came down to: 1) this was done on purpose, or 2) this was done by accident. The “on purpose scenario” was really not likely because Blue Streak was in a safe place all night. That left me with “I did it by accident” (nobody’s perfect).🙄  So how did I accidentally partially pull out the pin and not realize I had done this? After thinking about it, I had to find a culprit to blame and that culprit was: ‘THE LONG HANDLED BRUSH’. It was obvious. As I was washing around the hitch and jack I must have caught the cable and pulled out the pin just enough to activate the brakes but did not notice.

There is a bright side to all this. We had just installed two brand-new Trojan T-105 batteries and the over night brake activation did not kill them.👍 The batteries were down to 12.2 volts but rebounded to full charge of 12.8 volts and holding when fully charged. Could have been worse. There is an old saying: “Experience is the best teacher.”