Disk Brakes for the Wonder Egg!!

[bugeyedriver]

Well, she may be a "vintage" Oliver Elite with almost 140,000 miles, but she's had a NEW upgrade to her list of many, many improvements over the years.  Following ScubaRX's template from 2017, with some minor modifications, the old tired drum brakes have been retired to the history bin and have been replaced with disk brakes.  Woohooooooo . . .  Took her for a test run today and I'm very pleased with the result.  If anyone is near San Antonio and desires the same modification (5200 lb axles required) contact Ron at Boerne RV - Eight 30 - 8 one 6 - 388 three and he will take good care of you.

[Katjo]

Good job!

[Mike and Carol]

Well, darn.  I don’t have the 5,200 lb axles.  I’ll be in to see Ron after our Arizona trip in January for our annual bearing repack and brake check.  Maybe he can figure out a way to upgrade our brakes which have between 80 and 90K miles.  Mike

[SeaDawg]

Gotta love the red calipers.bling, bling.

Nice wheels, too, btw.

[Frank C]

Very nice upgrade! 

[ADKCamper]

Congrats! Looks like a nice job!

We have a 2018 Elite and have been contemplating just such an upgrade for a while.  I have successfully done this on a boat trailer in the past.

One thing that I haven't been able to figure out... where did you put the electric-over-hydraulic controller? There's not very much room in or on an Elite for a unit of that size, that doesn't hang down too low, with routing opportunities for electrical cables and brake line...

It looks like you have a different spindle than the more recent Elites, with a zerk fitting for greasing the bearings. Is that original?

[rideandfly]

20 hours ago, bugeyedriver said:

Well, she may be a "vintage" Oliver Elite with almost 140,000 miles, but she's had a NEW upgrade to her list of many, many improvements over the years.  Following ScubaRX's template from 2017, with some minor modifications, the old tired drum brakes have been retired to the history bin and have been replaced with disk brakes.  Woohooooooo . . .  Took her for a test run today and I'm very pleased with the result.  If anyone is near San Antonio and desires the same modification (5200 lb axles required) contact Ron at Boerne RV - Eight 30 - 8 one 6 - 388 three and he will take good care of you.

Pete,

Absolutely beautiful! Been thinking about eventually replacing the drums & brakes on our 2015 LE2's 5200lb axles. 

There are very few 5200lb axles on LE2's in case some are wondering, Oliver installed a few on LE2's when they ran out of 3500lb axles.

Will give Ron a call when ready to pull the trigger on that project.

Thanks for posting!

[bugeyedriver]

8 hours ago, ADKCamper said:

Congrats! Looks like a nice job!

We have a 2018 Elite and have been contemplating just such an upgrade for a while.  I have successfully done this on a boat trailer in the past.

One thing that I haven't been able to figure out... where did you put the electric-over-hydraulic controller? There's not very much room in or on an Elite for a unit of that size, that doesn't hang down too low, with routing opportunities for electrical cables and brake line...

It looks like you have a different spindle than the more recent Elites, with a zerk fitting for greasing the bearings. Is that original?

I purchased a 5" X 13" X 1/4" sheet of aluminum for mounting the actuator and asked Ron to ensure the fill port was mid-center, between the propane tanks.  It is tight, but does not interfere with the tanks or make contact with the fiberglass shell.  The actuator adaptor module which allows it to interface with modern in truck brake controllers is mounted on the inside of the street-side A-frame.  One major change I asked Ron to do from ScubaRX's design is to enclose the entire run of the copper-nickle brake line in a protective stainless steel brake line protector from  Summit Racing  https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ops-gg31616ss It slips right over the brake line to protect it from stones.  The line is  run on the side of a frame member until it enters the fiberglass channel housing the propane line where it is well secured and away from anything that might chafe it over the long term. 

The grease bearing zerk fitting came with my 5200 lb axle.  I never used it because one day a brake shop owner told me about all the extra work he was seeing because customers were applying too much grease, which squirted out of the seals, which then fouled up the brakes.

[CRM]

3 hours ago, rideandfly said:

Pete,

Absolutely beautiful! Been thinking about eventually replacing the drums & brakes on our 2015 LE2's 5200lb axles. 

There are very few 5200lb axles on LE2's in case some are wondering, Oliver installed a few on LE2's when they ran out of 3500lb axles.

Will give Ron a call when ready to pull the trigger on that project.

Thanks for posting!

I'm one of the lucky ones with 5200 axles, but not sure if the upgrade is worth the $3k to me as I have no problems whatsoever with the braking on my LE2.  Maybe single axle trailers see more of a performance boost?

[CRM]

20 hours ago, bugeyedriver said:

Well, she may be a "vintage" Oliver Elite with almost 140,000 miles, but she's had a NEW upgrade to her list of many, many improvements over the years.  Following ScubaRX's template from 2017, with some minor modifications, the old tired drum brakes have been retired to the history bin and have been replaced with disk brakes.  Woohooooooo . . .  Took her for a test run today and I'm very pleased with the result.  If anyone is near San Antonio and desires the same modification (5200 lb axles required) contact Ron at Boerne RV - Eight 30 - 8 one 6 - 388 three and he will take good care of you.

Beautiful install!

[rideandfly]

4 hours ago, CRM said:

I'm one of the lucky ones with 5200 axles, but not sure if the upgrade is worth the $3k to me as I have no problems whatsoever with the braking on my LE2.  Maybe single axle trailers see more of a performance boost?

When it's time to rebuild our 5200lb axle brake assemblies including installation of new bearings/races, will probably install disc brakes instead. The 5200lb axles have larger drum brakes compared to the 3500lb axles and do a good job stopping our LE2 Ollie, too.

[bugeyedriver]

My drum brakes performed admirably for over a decade with regular annual maintenance . . . I was traveling 9 to 10 thousand miles a year then.  Lots of braking events . . . and then . . . COVID!   No travel at all for one year, and two years only going 700 miles into the mountains and sitting for 3 months with lots of friends in the cool air.  Well. the dust and debris of normal travel had gotten into the drums and sort of solidified, causing the left drum to cease working altogether and the right one to be cantankerous.  My TV is an F150 which has abundant braking power for my 3900 lb Wonder Egg.  But that's not the point.  I need to ensure safety at ALL times, even when going down 9 miles of 12-15° down slopes in the mountains.   So that was the impetus for my move to disk brakes.  Plus . . . they look COOL!   $1600 in parts, $900 in labor. For me, where I am in life at this time, it is worth every buckaaroo. 

I hope to return to my long wanderings again this year.  Woohooooo

[ADKCamper]

Thanks so much for the additional details... Nice retrofit, and well thought out!

[bugeyedriver]

14 hours ago, ADKCamper said:

Thanks so much for the additional details... Nice retrofit, and well thought out!

I give credit to ScubaRX for detailing his disk brake modification back in 2017 and Ron for his mechanical prowess.  

[hobo]

On 12/16/2022 at 3:10 PM, CRM said:

I'm one of the lucky ones with 5200 axles, but not sure if the upgrade is worth the $3k to me as I have no problems whatsoever with the braking on my LE2.  Maybe single axle trailers see more of a performance boost?

How do I determine which axles I have on my 2018/2019 LE II trailer?  (Hull 414 was the very last LE II produced in 2018 so it may have some 2019 components).

Thanks

[CRM]

2 hours ago, hobo said:

How do I determine which axles I have on my 2018/2019 LE II trailer?  (Hull 414 was the very last LE II produced in 2018 so it may have some 2019 components).

Thanks

There is supposed to be a tag on the rear of the axle with the model number on it. If your tag is missing, as mine was, look at the flange where the brake assembly mounts to the axle. If you have 4 bolts in a square pattern they're 3500# axles, and if you have 5 bolts in a in a circular pattern they're 5200# axles.

[rideandfly]

2 hours ago, hobo said:

How do I determine which axles I have on my 2018/2019 LE II trailer?  (Hull 414 was the very last LE II produced in 2018 so it may have some 2019 components).

Thanks

There is a serial number on the axle. Dexter will send you a build sheet with Dexter component part numbers used,

It’s in the frequently asked question section under “How do I identify my axle”

https://www.dexteraxle.com/Contact/FAQ/Axles

[Ollie-Haus]

On 12/17/2022 at 12:59 PM, bugeyedriver said:

I give credit to ScubaRX for detailing his disk brake modification back in 2017 and Ron for his mechanical prowess.  

@bugeyedriver hey Pete, can you point me to the thread you spoke of where @ScubaRx detailed their upgrade to disc brakes. can't seem to locate it with the search system. I would love to have as much info as possible if I choose to upgrade to discs myself. Thanks!

[bugeyedriver]

You'll find ScubaRX's disk brake project down on page 2 of this thread, with a April 18, 2017 entry date.  Good Luck!

 

[Ollie-Haus]

3 hours ago, bugeyedriver said:

You'll find ScubaRX's disk brake project down on page 2 of this thread, with a April 18, 2017 entry date.  Good Luck!

 

Thanks Pete. I found one link in a thread and it said the page did not exist. I save these kind of thinks in my "useful thread" folder. 😁