A couple of thoughts;

First - ~Damn~ that's a lot of weight you're pulling. Might even be just a little over the rated towing capacity of your truck, V-10 and all - but if you can get those brakes working a little better, you have my blessings.

Second - Make sure all of the electric brakes on your trailer are working as they should. I'm assuming you have 3 axles, and that each axle has brakes. The magnets in particular have a habit of going bad, and the linings have to be in top shape to stop that much weight. From my experience, properly-functioning electric brakes will actually add more braking force than required to slow the trailer, even with a full load, meaning that the towing vehicle can actually stop better when pulling the trailer than when not. During a panic stop it's a good situation if the trailer is actually pulling on your vehicle instead of pushing it toward a nasty jackknife.

Third - If the trailer brakes are working properly and the trailer isn't overloaded, your stock brakes should be up to the job if they're working right. They obviously shouldn't be pulling to one side, so something's up for sure. Pulling all that weight, new calipers and cylinders seem like a no-brainer unless they've been replaced very recently. I'd try to get front pads that are designed for gripping force instead of longevity. There are probably fewer options for shoe linings.

Fourth - I've never been a huge fan of vacuum brakes - at least not for the type of serious sh*t you're doing. You might be able to get a bigger booster, maybe even a tandem diaphragm, but the Granddaddy of all boosters is the Bosch Hydro-Max, not to be confused with the smaller hydroboost, although they both work on the same principle; namely, using hydraulic pressure from the power steering pump to amplify brake pedal force, instead of vacuum. This system is typically found on (non-air brake) medium-duty trucks, as in the 26,000 - 33,000 GVW range. Hydro-max boosters put out around 2,000 psi, and can amplify pedal force by up to 7 times, as opposed to 2-4 times for vacuum boosters. Many Fords and Internationals use this system, and it's a beast. Some of the Fords used a second, dedicated belt-driven pump, but typically the pressure from the single power steering pump is routed through the steering box (as usual), and then to the Hydro-Max, then back to the reservoir. All the Hydro-Max systems use an electric backup pump in case of power steering pump failure. Just something to look into. Here's a link:

http://rb-kwin.bosch.com/pool/usa/pd...ter_Manual.pdf

Lastly, you can sometimes get slightly larger magnets for your electric brakes that will exert more force onto the shoes, and you also might look into using larger wires throughout the electric brake system to get more power to the magnets.

 

Thanks again for all the thoughts!

As far as I know we have the vac booster in the V10.
We have the Dana 80 in the back, not the 70, so not sure whether the brake setup for the Dana 70 will work here.

Our trailer actually has hydraulic brakes. WAY better than the electric ones and we have a proportional brake controller in the truck, not an inertia type. The trailer is not pushing us at all. It's really the truck we are concerned about.

That's interesting on the booster systems. Have to take a look at that.

 

That's pretty funny; as i was writing my answer, I thought to myself "he ~does~ have electric brakes, doesn't he?" .... "Sure, he must .. I distinctly remember that he said he had a controller in the cab".

Then as I was scrolling down to see the new response, I re-read your original post and got that old "oh sh*t" sensation.

How does a proportional hydraulic controller work? I guess I'm mostly familiar with the (purely) surge-type hydraulic brakes.

 

In our case the brake controller has a pressure sensing pad on the brake pedal that sends the signal back to the trailer brake actuator, which works with compressed air, so it has basincally no time lag.
The system was developed in New Zealand and (unfortunately) got sold to Al-Ko last year. It is called Sens-A-Brake.
There are also controllers available that tap into the truck's brake line and measure the pressure there.
You don't have to decelerate the truck before the trailer brakes come on that way and the braking is much smoother and truly proportional to the truck.

We have hauled several trailers with electric brakes and compared to hydraulic brakes they just don't stand up at all.

Didn't mention, I'm actually a girl...

Marina

 

"Didn't mention, I'm actually a girl... "

Hauling a 20,000 lb trailer actually makes you "all woman", not a girl.

That hydraulic system sounds great; I'm going to have to look into it and maybe convert a trailer or two over to it the next time my electric brakes give me trouble.

Lastly, you might someday want to look into a "performance" PCM for that V-10. I've driven a friend's mid-90's 2500 V-10 and it didn't really "wow" me like I thought it would; I have a feeling that engine can make a lot more power with a few tweaks. I'd imagine you could use all the power you can get with that HEAVY towing you're doing.

Good luck with the brakes.

 

Thanks John.

Compared to the 1980 Jeep J20 with the 360 V8 we had before, we are actually very happy with the performance of our V10.
The 5-speed is not ideal in terms of the steps between the gears, so we may eventually exchange it with a 6-speed.
I know what you mean though with the lack of wow effect on some V10s. We had a 1998 Ram 2500 V10 years ago, with the automatic tranny and 3.54 axle ratio. It was not great at towing at all, which really was mainly due to the automatic. The 5-speed with 4.10 gears is doing much better.

I know there is a lot we could do to the performance of the engine, but we also want it to last for quite some time.
We are into building homes, so we have a 6 ton excavator and building materials to haul around.

I'll let you know how we make out with the brakes.