And as far as the brakes go, when I picked mine up at little guy I should have dialed in my brakes with the brake controller there. When I got home I tried setting my trailer brakes with my brake controller only to find the brakes weren't working. Well after some phone calls to Little Guy and some prodding around I am PRETTY sure that the brakes just need adjusting. Is that common to buy a trailer with brakes and have to crawl under to manually adjust them before setting them with brake controller? All this is new to me.
What do you mean by... "not working". Not working at all?
When I built my trailer, and finally hooked up the brakes, I found they didn't do much. I had the gain on the brake controller maxed out, and the brakes didn't do very much. Just barely could tell they were on. But, after a few thousand miles, they are now quite strong. I can lock them up with a 6 out of 10 on the gain, and the trailer can stop the whole truck on the over-ride if I want to. Not a screeching stop (well, the trailer does...) but you can tell the brakes are pretty strong. Using the truck and trailer brakes together as normal, the truck stops as fast as it can without the trailer. Maybe even faster it seems.
So, there's probably a certain amount of break-in required on new brakes.
Weight: The anticipated weight of my teardrop is ~2500lbs. Then add about 500lbs for water, gear, etc. That means a tongue weight of ~350lbs. There is no way around tongue weight. If you don't have enough you have stability problems, too much and its tough on the Jeep. I'm having a receiver tongue built in for some adjustability
Holy Moly! How come so much? That's heavier than my big steel thing.
I put most of the gear in it last night for our camping trip this weekend. Found that the cheap-o composite tool box on the tongue had warped when it was left open and didn't want to close; you have to pull on the box part of the hasp and spread the front out as you push the top down. Low quality nasty small box that wasn't worth $120 and needs replacing...
Interesting, I almost bought one of those, but it didn't fit on my tongue properly. Good thing I guess.
I got the Tekonsha Prodigy P2 because it offer a three axis pendulum.
Yes, I suggest getting the best one you can for off-road duty. Cheapo trailer brake controllers aren't really designed for 20% grades, etc.
So I dumped a cup of water down the drain. Swoosh, down the drain it went, gurgle gurgle twank twank ---- it spilled down the skidplate and found it's exit by the left wheel at the axle opening.
That's sort of how mine is set up, but I do have the pipe sticking right out of the floor so I can see it. RV shops have these little light blue coloured grey water totes on wheels. I was thinking about those. Or a hose to guide it away. It hasn't been a huge issue yet though. Plus, I'm in a RTT 6 feet on top of the whole mess so I'm less concerned.
The Jeep did not like towing this thing at all. Even using a Superchips Flashpaq set on "Towing" and with 93 octane fuel, it was pinging and could barely reach 45 mph going uphill.
Wow, that really surprises me. Like... you CAN'T go past 45, or you're trying to go easy on it? That motor has roughly the same power rating of mine, and I don't have a problem that bad. Uses a lot of gas but... Auto or manual?
How much did the old Conqueror weigh? I'd have thought it was heavier than the teardrop.
Hate to see the problems you are having. It seams that some very good intentions were executed just too hastily and therfore sloppy.
