Trailer Brake Trouble

After about two months of use I noticed that I was getting an “OL” message on the brake controller. The “OL” represented an overload or a dead short in the trailer braking system. For those unfamiliar (as I was) with trailer brakes its a relativley simply system. Think of it like a like dimmer on a table lamp. The more energy you feed to the lamp the brighter it gets, just like the trailer brakes – the more power you feed them the more braking power you get. Well in my case there was to much current being drawn which is indicative of a short in the system.
I called our dealer and they were 2 weeks out from even having a place to park the camper, let alone look at it. So I started to tackle the repair myself. Our axles were manufactured by Dexter Axle, and they are a great company. I called and talked to their warranty person. He send me some reference information and told me to call him back with any parts I needed, he was ready to ship out an entire axle if I needed it.
I had already hooked up another truck and tested the system out, same result so that pretty much ruled out anything with the brake controller or the wiring on the truck. My next step was to start isolating each wheel to find out which one was the offending brake. I started with the front axle, cut the green power wires to one side, then the other and the short went away. It took just a few minutes to isolate the short to the magnet in the left front wheel.


I called Dexter axle told them what I had found and they had parts shipped to me to repair the axle. The repair was pretty straight forward. I watched a few YouTube videos to get some background on the repair.
So far so good, I probably need to adjust the brakes now as they have a few miles on them just to make sure things are operating properly.


It is frustrating to have a trailer under warranty and still have to handle the repairs yourself. Were it not for the month long wait to get the trailer back I would have had our dealer handle it.

Camping Knife

Staying in a 27 foot long new travel trailer is not really the epitome of roughing it. Nonetheless having a good knife is an essential tool to camping. Knives these days can be crazy expensive, and regardless of price can still be easily lost. Here are the qualifications I sought out in a new knife.
– Had to be a folder, no straight blades.
– Needed a history of durability, no junk.
– The knife was not going to see a ton of heavy work, mostly light cutting and cooking duties so I wanted a blade material that would resist stains and sharpen easily.
– The knife had to be under $45

I settled on the Ontario Knife Company Rat I in Aus-8 Stainless steel.

I found the knife on Amazon for under $30 with free shipping. I went and added a small leather lanyard to it and so far it has been working great.

You can see a review of the knife on this youtube video, I like Nick’s reviews he seems on point with the content he is presenting (no pun intended)