finally towed w/ my rig-have concerns
 

After 5 years of owning my toy, I finally got to tow with it. My brother gave me his boat, an old 70's glassmaster with a 125 hp outboard merc. Not very large, and really quite light for it's size. Surprisingly, I could still feel it's load/weight on some of the grades on I-80 heading to Truckee. Here is my concern:
I recently followed BC847's post in the sticky on swapping out the brake lines to stainless braided. I found a source in my town that custom makes the brake lines, and this guy matched the ends of the oem lines exactly. The end result is an awsome pedal. Like night and day.
I took on this 2 hour towing trip confident, till I had to slam on my brakes due to road construction and backed up semis, and my front end wants to shoot off towards the right then to the left. Only does it on high speeds; 40 mph and less it will not do it. Brakes work great, just kinda scary when the truck wants to pull to the right then left, which almost caused me to fishtail the boat.
2 days ago I mounted the power steering box bracket/brace from dodgeconnection.com in hopes of tightening up my steering and making the steering assembly to frame stronger/tight, but what happened during towing has me concerned. What really has me stumped is that I have the dual shock steering stabilizers on my truck; aren't these supposed to get rid of steering wheel twists? Where else do I need to focus on to help correct this? Do ball joints or a bad drag link cause this? What about tie rod assembly?

I would suspect that anti-lock junk on the rear brakes as being part of the problem.

Also, you could have a binding caliper, or both front calipers binding.

Being a boat trailer, I sort of doubt the trailer having very good brakes, if any at all, which compounds the problem.

If it were my truck, I would first eliminate the rear wheel RWAL mess, then see what it does.:cool:

x2 on BK. A caliper that grabs better than the other side will pull hard in that direction.

I had something like that going on a couple years ago. I think the front leaf spring on the driver side getting weak was contributing to uneven braking weirdness under hard braking. Normally, the brakes would not seem to pull. But under hard, panic stop braking it had a good push to the right. I think the weaker driver side spring was getting less traction when the the front end started to dive, causing the pull.

Fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it [laugh]) I don't know if I have fixed it yet because I haven't made a panic stop since I added a leaf to strengthen that spring and level it up. I also turned up the passenger side front shock to max for compensation. It is probably so screwed now it will just flip and roll next time I have to really stomp on the brakes. :o

i just had new calipers/pads installed on both sides... same story, its still all over the road on heavy braking, especially towing.

slip joint appears snug, tie rods etc look good...

nonetheless, something is definitely moving around up there under heavy braking.

Bob

bad tie rod ends could add to the problem as well

bigragu I ran into this problem this last week. In the great city of Houston panic stops are the norm. My 92 would pull hard to the left then i'd let off and reapply the brakes hard and it would go right. After getting back to the shop I did several panic stop to find out what was going on and found it to be the back brakes. I backed off the back brakes and the problem went away. So I also believe it is the rwal. If I find time in the next few days i'm going to by-pass the rwal system. I beginning to think it is the probable cause of all my bad brake problems. Having changed the complete m/c and booster 3 times and the booster 1 time before that I just don't think 4 boosters and 3 m/c's go bad in a 1 1/2 year span. If the removal of the rwal doesn't cure it I forsee a hydro-vac in the near future. Good luck fixing your brakes.

Thanks for all the replies. I am the 3rd owner of the truck, so from an electrical standpoint, I am not sure if the rwal system has been disabled. All I know is that I have never ever seen a rwal light on my dash come on. Swear on my 91.5(God rest his soul-passed away in 2003) I saw some kind of light come on initially at start up, and at least you knew when it was working because at hard braking you would feel this braking pulsation. Never felt that on my rig now. In fact, did I mention the stainless braided lines already paid for themselves in possible damages? 3 nights ago a buck ran out across the highway as I was going 65. Missed by around a foot, but my foot was buried into that pedal, just as quick and hard as if a big cockroach were to happen up on you in your kitchen. As I recall, no right side swerve, no brake pulsation, just a nice brake grab slowing me from 65 to 45 that quick.
At any rate, I will diagnose/treat the easiest of the problems, which is disabling the rwal. Please explain the reasoning to this and how to do it. Why would anyone disable a system that was installed by the factory as a means of braking safety?

Because it wasn't a great system to begin with, and after 15 years stuff wears out and doesn't work right. So disabling it gives you rear brakes that work too good sometimes, which is better than brakes that don't work at all.

Dont confuse "brake safety" with "government mandate". All vehicles built after a certain year had to have at least RWAL, all wheel ABS preferred. Only problem is, I learned to drive on pre-ABS vehicles, so that is how I stop in bad weather. Basically, Dodge put the RWAL module in line with the rear brake system, no other changes. Bypassing it will allow the brake system to function as it did when it was originally designed in the 60s or 70s, with dependable, predictable braking being a side effect. Learn where the pedal is vs brake lockup, and you will do just fine.

I looked at mine today but didn't really clean it up to the point I knew exactly what I needed. But I think all you need is a coupler and maybe a short piece of brake line, you may not even need the short piece of brake line. As 92roughstock said it ain't safe if it don't work correctly. I can push my truck to the point it will slide one side or the other on the rears so it makes no difference if it is hooked up or not. I too was driving long before all this abs stuff came out, but when it works correctly it's good but when it doesn't it's more dangerous than not having it. If by-passing it doesn't cure my brake problems the hydro-vac will.

By "hydro-vac", are you meaning replacing the vacuum-booster with a hydro-boost system; or, are you meaning one of those huge frame-mounted vacuum boosters that is hydraulically actuated, then the huge booster activates a seperate master-cylinder that REALLY slams the shoes into the drums ??

i have a trailer with the hydrolic brakes like most boat trailers and it whips side to side prettybaddly on at speed stops

After reading this I too believe I may have a bad RWAL. On looses or wet surfaces my passenger side rear tire will lock up and on hard brakes at highway speeds I get a good pull to the passenger side as well.

Bigragu, if I remember correctly, the ABS light would come on for a second or two at start-up on my 93. Remember that when you make a panic stop your front end dips heavily, even while towing. If you have any play in the steering, and most 1st gens do, it will be magnified by the weight transfer to the front during hard braking. You also have the extra weight pushing you and you probably don't have brakes on the boat trailer so no help there. You could have a truck with -0- play in the steering, flawless brakes and it could still walk side to side in your scenario because you cannot cancel out the wear in the road surface. The surface wear may not look like much but it will pull you all over the place. You stated you've had this truck for 5 years and haven't towed with it until now. I'd humbly encourage you to drive a little more defensively until you get used to the characteristics of the truck while towing.:cool: