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OK..got the trailer brakes on the port side done!!! YEAAAA. Overall very easy. If you have worked on brakes and hubs before..walk in the park. Takes some muscle getting it apart. but super straight forward.

below are the assembly of the brakes. Eventually I wil make a nice tidy web page with all the info how to do it..but for now, this should work if anyone wants to tackle this. Then again, if you have any mechanical skills, you won't need this. Nothing strange here.


Ths is the correct rotor. It came in all metal, not painted like the incorrect one that I posted earlier. I took some time and cleaned it quite well, and painted it with some chassis epoxy paint. Should be durable..if it can take the heat. If not..what can ya do? They do have brake paint. I didnt have any of that on hand


greased the rear bearing, put it in the race in the back, now going to tap in the rear seal. Spring side in. Place a wood block over the seal, hit with hammer carefully. Walk it down, it is a tight fit. I put a lot of grease inside this area to ensure enough coverage when putting it on the axle


Seal driven home


Rotor/hub placed on the axle, outer bearing installed, well greased to fill the cavity.


rest of the parts installed. tighten down to zero clearance. Spin hub to ensure it seats in both bearings. rock back and forth to ensure it is done right. CHeck the rear to ensure the seal is on axle properly. DO NOT over tighten!!


Cap installed over nut, cotter pin installed. Do not forget cap. This will ensure the nut doesnt slip



Pack the bearing protector almost full of grease (leave some room in it). Hit home the bearing protector, using a block of wood. rotate 180 degrees between blows until the bearing protector bottoms out in the ridge.

The following pics show how to test to see if enough grease is in the hub. Press on the blue edge. The cover should move...if it does not ..add grease..if it does..it is good. If you forget..read the cap












Old and new pads. Old pads are pretty worn. With new rotors being installed, it is worth the $12 or so a wheel to replace the pads while the brakes are apart


caliper bracket socket - 3/8 hex



Caliper bolts 7mm


installing - back view


bracket mounted


pads installed - make sure u push the caliper piston back into the caliper to fit on the rotor. I used a C-clamp, opened the brake bleeder, put a hose on the bleeder to catch the extra brake fluid. I closed the c-clamp on the piston carefully..pressed the piston back..the extra fluid got forced out the hose into the catch can. Once the piston was most of the way back, the pads were able to clear the rotor.


caliper bolt being installed wiggle the caliper in the bracket to line it up. Tighten up snug..not overly so though.




Calipers installed



Another view



Done - clip installed on pads, grease/dust cap installed. Note the cap has instructions to check the grease level by pressing on an edge.



Wheel installed with 5 new lugnuts on lightly lubricated lugs. hand torque to 90#

Thats all there is to it. I put a lot of steps in...but it is not a big deal.

Paul

you need to take this experience to the next level.
that is, go on tour giving seminars or "Mac Brake-Fests" in high volume Mac markets.
i suggest "cash only" to avoid all those rigid IRS regulations.

Its honestly not that bad. It looks harder than it is. If someone has done brakes before, this is a piece of cake. But if the owner takes better care of the brakes than I did, this problem should not happen at all!

I still have a few more pics to post..but got tired last nite..will post the last few shortly

If you don't take the time to paint the brake parts, clean the rust and paint the trailer parts, you can knock it out in a couple hours per side. Add a day if you paint the parts and let them dry before installing them.

Paul

updated the original post in this thread. Check it out.

Paul

You know, Paul, if you spread grease on those disks they won't rust nearly so badly.





(BTW, nice job with the walk through. Now you can do one on drum brakes, as they are eversomuch more fun.)

I think that is the one thing you might have left out Paul (I might have missed it though)

Most brake discs I have bought come with a thin layer of grease for stock purposes, and you need to wipe this off with paper or cloth and some solvent (I use COleman fuel usually, gas also works) before you mount them up.

Yes i didnt go into detail like how to clean the parts. Obviously I did. the parts cleaned up with brake cleaner just fine. Even with as much detail as I did, there were many small things done in between, that is SOP for a job like this...that is just assumed.

Paul

The little stuff, like how to pack bearings and all that you have to know of course...but if you dont mind my chiming in, if you forget to clean those discs its a really bad day...

the disc was cleaned well..just got a bit of paint overspray on it. No biggie. It will wear off first time the brakes are applied. But the disc and pads are grease free of course.

whooo hoo..finally got around to doing the other side. Came out great. Not a huge expense doing it myself ($120 total for rotor/hub, pads, seals, new bearing bras, and shipping).

Just blead the system with my wife's assistance. Now got to road test it. But sure did work nice though doing it by hand!

Paul

Hey Paul, I just did this whole evolution, too.

All I originally planned to do was take my rotors to Pep Boys and have them turned, and bleed the brakes so I was sure that the trailer would pass inspection (welcome to NY State - your trailer needs an inspection....)

Anyway - I moved from Rhode Island (= Salt Water).

Lo and behold, I wound up having to break 5 of 10 studs just to get the two wheels off. Usually no big deal, just go to Pep Boys and get new studs ... OOPS, oh no you have some strange hub and we cannot match those studs...

It took me a while to track down, but eventually I found that the OEM parts supplier for these parts on my 2004 26M trailer is Waymire Distributors in Indianapolis.

Once I tracked Waymire down, I found them to be extremely knowledgeable about the equipment installed on the trailer, and immediately able to help me out. I wound up just buying 2 new hubs/rotor assemblies with new lug nuts, as well as new studs for the old hubs. The other thing they were able to point out was that while the bearings on the trailer are just standard bearings you can buy at any auto parts store, the grease seals are NOT. They are a specific marine-type seal to fit those specific hubs/axles. So, I ordered a set of seals from them, too.

The only difficulty I had was when the stuff all came, they had sent the wrong seals. I called them up and they immediately sent the correct seals at no charge, so I'm not complaining.

As Paul said above, once I had all the (correct) parts, putting it all together was pretty straight forward with no big problems.

I went ahead and bought a torque wrench to torque the lugs this time around, and one thing I learned is that the 90-95 ftlbs. of torque called for in the owner's manual is A LOT LESS than what I used to always do manually using just a tire iron and my uncalibrated arms. That probably contributed a lot to why I wound up breaking studs in the first place ...

- Andy

sounds good... I got the parts from waymire as well..very good...but they did send me the wrong rotros, seals, and bearing bra the first time...Apparently you need the 'ranger' parts...

I got the part # from UFP after waymire sent me the wrong parts...I didn't replace the bearings as they were flawless..maybe next time..Yes the seals are special marine seals..

The parts were very reasonably priced...easy to do...Glad they are disc brakes and not drum..easy to work on..

Trailers tend to not get the attention they deserve..

Welcome to the club I will have tshirts made LOL

BTW, here are the correct part # again from waymire

Pads: 31766UK $26/set (2 required per axle)
rotors-36162
seals - 32372