Dexter Self Adjusting Brake - Fail

[Galway Girl]

This spring I ordered new Dexter Nevr-Adjust brake assemblies and new pre loaded drums for a 60k mile tune up.

Since the trailer was at a dealer for the truma recall had the dealer install them.

 We had some smoke early on during break in drive was expected, stopped checked temperature of hubs and all was ok.  Set gain to 5 and drove on.  

After the break in period at about 300 mi we were feeling really  strange tugging braking.  

Stopped at our daughter’s ranch, pulled the drivers side hubs and found the brake pads  had just disintegrated. The service centers best guess is that the self adjusters over adjusted and caused brake lining failing or we unfortunately got a bad batch. 
 

Lucky we were near a local shop that got us in Saturday and replaced all 4 assemblies with regular assemblies (not never-adjust) . They also inspected, turned the drums, repacked bearings and installed new seals.  

We’re working with e-trailer to get a refund as the assemblies had a 5 year guarantee.

Now I’ve added an item to our 3k inspection which includes lubing Zerks, and now adjusting brakes as needed.

I’ve heard of, but never experienced, failed never adjust, but now I’m in the camp that they are not welcome on our trailer.

First pix note the crumbling shoes curb rear.

 

Second pix-  shoe all gone to bear metal.   Had to turn drums (which were brand new). Street rear.

 

Safe travels.

Craig

 

 

Edited May 12 by Galway Girl
added dexter to title for search purposes

[topgun2]

OUCH!

[rideandfly]

Glad it did not turn into something worse!!!

Etrailer folks are good to deal with. I plan to continue packing our Ollie’s bearings,  replacing seals and inspecting brakes/hardware. A few here have the disc brake upgrade that is very nice.

Happy to hear you were able to get everything fixed without breaking down on the side of the road and having to deal with that.  

 

 

 

 

Edited May 11 by rideandfly

[Steph and Dud B]

Lots of people, including us, have had issues with Dexter self-adjusting brakes. You were wise to return to standard manual-adjust assemblies.

[CRM]

7 hours ago, Galway Girl said:

This spring I ordered new Dexter Nevr-Adjust brake assemblies and new pre loaded drums for a 60k mile tune up.

Since the trailer was at a dealer for the truma recall had the dealer install them.

 We had some smoke early on during break in drive was expected, stopped checked temperature of hubs and all was ok.  Set gain to 5 and drove on.  

After the break in period at about 300 mi we were feeling really  strange tugging braking.  

Stopped at our daughter’s ranch, pulled the drivers side hubs and found the brake pads  had just disintegrated. The service centers best guess is that the self adjusters over adjusted and caused brake lining failing or we unfortunately got a bad batch. 
 

Lucky we were near a local shop that got us in Saturday and replaced all 4 assemblies with regular assemblies (not never-adjust) . They also inspected, turned the drums, repacked bearings and installed new seals.  

We’re working with e-trailer to get a refund as the assemblies had a 5 year guarantee.

Now I’ve added an item to our 3k inspection which includes lubing Zerks, and now adjusting brakes as needed.

I’ve heard of, but never experienced, failed never adjust, but now I’m in the camp that they are not welcome on our trailer.

First pix note the crumbling shoes curb rear.

Second pix-  shoe all gone to bear metal.   Had to turn drums (which were brand new). Street rear.

 

 

Safe travels.

Craig

 

 

Ouch, I'm surprised the drums were salvageable.

[Galway Girl]

15 hours ago, CRM said:

the drums were salvageable.

They were new drums and only had minor scraping so turning them was a reasonable option. 

I’m mostly upset with myself for not just doing the work myself in the first place . 
 

Waiting to hear back from etrailer in a claim. 

[jd1923]

2 hours ago, Galway Girl said:

I’m mostly upset with myself for not just doing the work myself in the first place.

Yep, almost every time I've contracted work, gone to a service facility, I'm sorry. Occasionally I'm surprised but a rare case. And we know Craig, you do excellent work in Oliver mods and repairs.

[Jason Foster]

I hate drum brakes.  A disc upgrade would be nice.

[Galway Girl]

Etrailer is saying I pay to ship bad parts back , they ship 4 new parts to me. 
I’m going to try and get them to be manual adjusting units so I’ll have spares. 

[jd1923]

37 minutes ago, Galway Girl said:

Etrailer is saying I pay to ship bad parts back , they ship 4 new parts to me. 
I’m going to try and get them to be manual adjusting units so I’ll have spares. 

eTrailer has always been good with customer service. I try to buy from them whenever they are competitive in price.

Self-adjusters on drum brakes have gotten a bad rap on this forum starting years ago with @John E Davies. I argued with him two years ago that I'd rather have self adjusters. If you go without self adjusting, you better jack your wheels off the ground and remove wheels or get under your trailer to the adjusting port on the backside of the braking plate and adjust each one manually before every long road trip. Not me.

I've owned at least 10 old cars, worked full restorations of brakes systems and everything else and self-adjusting drum brakes are standard equipment on every post-war car into the 80s, and btw my 2001 Dodge Ram has rear drum brakes. I adjust them regularly by driving in reverse and applying the brakes 5-6 times and they get tight again. I learned on this forum from others that trailer brakes self adjust goin forward instead. The shoes eTrailer replaces will be no different. You will just need to replace the item pictured without the self-adjusting gear. Likely a simple replacement part, check John E's old posts. I imagine something else went wrong with Craig's brakes, but would not know unless I disassembled everything myself and was lucky to find the causal issue.

[Patriot]

11 hours ago, Jason Foster said:

  A disc upgrade would be nice.

You may or may not like the cost involved. I believe @ScubaRx has disc brakes on his Oliver. 

[Patriot]

On 5/11/2025 at 2:11 PM, rideandfly said:

Etrailer folks are good to deal with.

Bill, 

The only draw back with Etrailer is they do not use an “RMA system” aka return merchandise authorized. It appears the buyer pays always shipping on returns. 

As with any business they have their share of complaints on BBB (link). I am very careful what I order from etrailer and verify the exact part(s) they are selling me are in stock and ready to ship that day. 

https://www.bbb.org/us/mo/wentzville/profile/new-auto-parts/etrailercom-0734-310024011/complaints

Edited May 13 by Patriot

[T-Oliver]

An example of disc brakes on an Oliver

D52 NevRLube axles, 5000lb springs 

12 in discs with 4 piston calipers

Electric over hydraulic actuation 

[Jason Foster]

37 minutes ago, T-Oliver said:

An example of disc brakes on an Oliver

D52 NevRLube axles, 5000lb springs 

12 in discs with 4 piston calipers

Electric over hydraulic actuation 

Very nice.

[Jason Foster]

14 hours ago, Patriot said:

You may or may not like the cost involved. I believe @ScubaRx has disc brakes on his Oliver. 

It is one of those things that I don't really care what the cost is if I need them.  As it stands now, my drum brakes are working fine.  If they fail, I will replace them with discs rather than new drums.

[Patriot]

9 hours ago, Jason Foster said:

It is one of those things that I don't really care what the cost is if I need them.  As it stands now, my drum brakes are working fine.  If they fail, I will replace them with discs rather than new drums.

👍🏻

Edited May 14 by Patriot

[rideandfly]

On 5/12/2025 at 10:22 PM, jd1923 said:

eTrailer has always been good with customer service. I try to buy from them whenever they are competitive in price.

 

21 hours ago, Patriot said:

Bill, 

The only draw back with Etrailer is they do not use an “RMA system” aka return merchandise authorized. It appears the buyer pays always shipping on returns.

I have had the same experience with Etrailer that jd1923 has had, received good service in the past, but I hate to see the troubles Galway Girl is having, too.

 

 

 

Edited May 14 by rideandfly

[MAX Burner]

10 hours ago, Jason Foster said:

D52 NevRLube axles, 5000lb springs 

12 in discs with 4 piston calipers

Electric over hydraulic actuation 

We should recommend this to Scott Oliver as a "Heavy Duty" option for whatever he has on the drawing board for the next line of trailers...  

Or even better, scrap the Dexters and go with Curt Adventure Edition indipendent suspension (but with disc brakes):

 

[jd1923]

5 hours ago, rideandfly said:

I have had the same experience with Etrailer that jd1923 has had, received good service in the past, but I hate to see the troubles Galway Girl is having, too.

Last year I purchased a Timbren bumpstop kit for the rear axle of my truck. When installing I had broken the u-bolt mount (a poor design since it did not fit flush and I had overtightened it not realizing this). I called eTrailer for a replacement part, thinking I would have to pay for it and/or shipping. The CSR took down my info, asked me to email a picture, and said she would speak to Timbren. She called me back the next morning reporting that Timbren approved sending me an entire new kit at no cost, no additional shipping. I got it in 2 days. That's why I continue to buy from them. I also purchased Timken bearings for the Oliver from them, knowing they would not be Chinese knockoffs! 

On 5/11/2025 at 8:23 AM, Galway Girl said:

After the break in period at about 300 mi we were feeling really  strange tugging braking...The service centers best guess is that the self adjusters over adjusted and caused brake lining failing or we unfortunately got a bad batch.

I don't see self-adjusters causing this issue in just 300 miles. I would first consider incorrect installation (which they would not admit) or perhaps the "bad batch" reason. Maybe they didn't get the top of the shoe on the post correctly. Also, smoke is not normal, or the shoe holders were not installed. And a minor smell of new materials can be expected, but visible smoke no! But who would think such a disaster would occur in just 300 miles.

[Galway Girl]

2 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Maybe they didn't get the top of the shoe on the post correctly.

These were complete dexter assemblies, so the RV Service Bay only had to bolt on the assembly, re-attach wires, and set initial adjustment.
Maybe something wasn't right.

In any case, I'll get a return address this week from E-Trailer and ship the mess back for replacment.
CS

 

[ScubaRx]

On 5/11/2025 at 1:11 PM, rideandfly said:

Etrailer folks are good to deal with. 

It does sound as if you’ve had good luck with eTrailer. I wish my only experience with them had been as good. I ordered a bread new Maxxfan from them because it was a few dollars cheaper than Amazon. It was bad right out of the box. Not only would they not take it back, I had to deal with the factory for warranty service. It took over a month to get it all sorted. I won’t be fooled again.

[ADKCamper]

On 5/12/2025 at 7:54 PM, Jason Foster said:

I hate drum brakes.  A disc upgrade would be nice.

I would really like a disc brake upgrade as well... installed Kodiak discs on my boat trailer and it really worked out well. The problem is I can't find a "nice" place to mount the electric-over-hydraulic controller. Several folks with Elite-2's have mounted them in the propane enclosure, but there's not enough room in my Elite-1 propane enclosure. I mocked it up with a modified cardboard cereal box and it just won't fit in there without removing one of the two 20-lb tanks. I think I could mount it on top of the fiberglass in front of the front tongue jack, but its pretty exposed there, looks kinda funny, and screams "come mess with me" to passing by ne'er do wells LOL. I could put it in some sort of tongue box, but that would interfere with lowering the TV tail gate all the way.

Edited May 14 by ADKCamper

[T-Oliver]

This is how then tech’s mounted mine 

[rideandfly]

3 hours ago, ScubaRx said:

It does sound as if you’ve had good luck with eTrailer. I wish my only experience with them had been as good. I ordered a bread new Maxxfan from them because it was a few dollars cheaper than Amazon. It was bad right out of the box. Not only would they not take it back, I had to deal with the factory for warranty service. It took over a month to get it all sorted. I won’t be fooled again.

Yep, I have had a good experiences dealing with them in the past, but that's what I like about this forum, we are hearing everyone's experience so folks here can make a well informed decision on who to buy from.

 

[rideandfly]

3 hours ago, ScubaRx said:

It does sound as if you’ve had good luck with eTrailer. I wish my only experience with them had been as good. I ordered a bread new Maxxfan from them because it was a few dollars cheaper than Amazon.

My MaxxFan came from Amazon without issues. 

Question, on your disc brake installation, was the electric over hydraulic actuator from Dexter?

I just found your reply to John Davies with information on disc brake parts needed for upgrade during 2015:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 14 by rideandfly