Help, we left emergency breakaway attatched

Help, We are new TM owners and haven't gotten into a routine yet. My husband had backed our TM into the driveway so that we could get it set up for our weekend trip. He apparently disconnected everything but the Emergency Breakaway Connection. When he pulled out of the driveway we had confirmation it worked as the trailer brakes are now locked and we don't know how to unlock them. I have looked through the Owners manual and on the website and haven't been able to find anything on this. I can't imagine we are the first to have done this. I guess this is better it happened now and not at the campground but we need to get this figured out so we can head out this weekend!!... Well my husband reconnected it and it seems to be working. I just want to make sure there isn't anything else we need to do to have it all connected.

[hhoenig]

follow the wire back to the black switch on the tongue, the switch is on a slide-- just slide the switch towards the rear of the trailer and it will re-set.

[Bill]

hhoenig -

Hmm, I'm not recognizing what you describe. When I get my TM back from the dealer - dealer repairs again - I'll check it out.

What I recall is that the break-away switch is activated (turns on the brakes) when you pull the wire loop. The wire loop in turn pulls a plastic pin out of a plastic housing. To reset the switch and deactivate the brakes, you simply push the plastic pin back into the housing.

Incidentally, this can be a good thing to know. If your TM ever gets away from you in a campground or in your driveway (it has happened to me), you can simply yank that wire loop to pull the pin. WHAM! The brakes come on and the trailer stops cold. Then, with events under control, you can chock the wheels and get control of things, and then push the pin back into the housing.

Fun4Us -

In your case, I'm not sure what effects will result from the long-term application of full power to the brakes. Potential bad news could occur in two areas. First, as Leon points out, the brake magnets could have overheated. The best way to tell is simply to drive and use the brakes. Do they feel like they did before? If so, good. If not, take it to an RV shop (not an auto brake shop like Meineke) and ask them to check it out. By the way, what brake controller do you have? Does it read out brake current (amps)? A readout of brake volts is no help here. You should expect full-power brake current of about 3 amps per wheel, or about 6 amps total if you have a single-axle TM.

The other potential problem is that if the brakes were on for several hours, they pretty well discharged the trailer battery. It can be recharged, of course, and should be - by plugging your TM in to shore power, or by plugging it into your tow vehicle and driving somewhere. Unfortunately, batteries don't like to be deeply discharged. The effect isn't catastrophic - nothing will die or explode or leak - but the battery life may be shortened. Live and learn.

If you see anything to report, let us know - we'll all get smarter. And don't feel bad about doing this. I suspect we've all done something similar - I know I have - and lived to tell about it. As Leon said, all you can do is go slow, double check, and learn from your mistakes, because they WILL happen. Don't be discouraged.

Bill

No damage done. It was hours before we hooked the emergency break away brake back up (since we were unsure what needed to be done, didn't seem it could be so easy as just plugging it back in) so we must have drained the battery. Since it was a 2 1/2 hour drive to the campground we must have charged it back up. Glad for this insight though as we certainly weren't even thinking that it was draining the battery while we were trying to figure out how to attack the problem. I was convinced we had blown some fuses as certain lights in the trailer wouldn't go on while I was trying to get the trailer loaded up but my husband finally came in and clued me in to the cut off button on the bathroom wall. Since we had the bathroom down I hadn't even considered this. (He never told me about this button) I was just trying to figure out where the fuse box was so I could see if we had blown some fuses as I was sure this was the problem. This whole weekend seemed like a comedy of errors. We had a fifth wheeler very interested in our TM and since they were watching us fold the TM back up it seems like every glitch we could have we did. I was excited to see another TM on the same row as we were at our campground!!! We had a good 2nd camping trip and seem to be getting it all figured out.

There is another puzzler for many newbies... The lights that are under the ceiling cabinet at the front..... Sometimes it takes a bit of tootering to find out how they can be turned on or off. You will notice that both have separate on/off slide switches. But there is a third switch that controls both lights at the same time. You should find a small round black knob just inside the frame of your ceiling vent opening. This system can drive you crazy until you figure how the three switches work. The round knob switch will roll to turn the lights on..... but if someone has turned them off using the switches at each light, nothing will happen. So, turn these switches on and then either or both lights will be controlled by the knob. If you wish, you can also control each switch separately with its own slide switch.

Many people have been fooled by this system, thinking that their lights are malfunctioning. I have known some to travel back to the dealer for warranty work, only to be shown that all was in working order in the first place.

hal