On the road brake advice and did I misunderstand the assignment.

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There is rotor seasoning and pad bedding. Usually, people skip seasoning as it is a multiday process and not practical to do.

Bedding... it takes ~300 miles of mixed driving, and this is why after you get a brake job at the dealer, they recommend driving more careful those miles.
Obviously, you don't have that option now, so you'll have to do a performance brake bedding. The tricky part is that you are using street pads that do not operate well at high temps.

Anyway, you do need some roads with little traffic and a 50mph or more speed limit and as fewer stops as possible. That sounds like a state road and that's what I use. It is also advised to time this when there is light or no traffic. I usually do this late in the evening or at night.

If you search online, you'll find many variations, mostly for regular street pads/cars. Here is what my procedure is, a concoction from docs from Brembo, IPD, PBR, and the forums I frequented over the years. I used this on all my vehicles for many years, but I have performance pads, except for the LX rears that are OEM. I do use this procedure on OEM pads to but your milage may vary. What I'm saying is that you should use your own judgement as I'm not familiar with your truck (looks like it is modified) and I do not have experience with bedding front OEM brakes as my truck has TRD BBK Tundra brakes.

The idea is to gentle warm the brakes, then thermocycle the brakes a few times, and finally cool them down in a controlled way.

During the procedure you should never lock your brakes or activate the ABS!
Unless specified to stop, do not completely stop as that will deposit pad material on the rotor! Off course you should stop if you have to (traffic, stop signs, etc.).
Pick your roads wisely so you are not speeding. You should pay attention to your brakes not where the cops are.
Cooling brakes is not done by parking the vehicle but by driving at highway speeds.
Keep the windows down when doing it so you can use your nose. No smell means you are not heating them enough. All pads smell even if the ones claiming they are prebaked. If you do not have experience with this the smell might feel excessive, but it does smell awful.

I start by warming up the brakes by performing 2x 50-65mph to 5-10mph stops, light to medium. If you have soft pads, I'll probably use 10x or more 30mph to 5mph stops to be gentler.
Next, I do 2x back-to-back heavy stops from 65mph to 10mph (or 50mph to 5mph for you) at a point just prior to wheel lockup or ABS actuation.
I drive for 10min to allow the brakes to cool.
Then I warm up the brakes again with 3x light stops in succession.
Finally, perform 6-8x heavy stops in succession from 65mph to 10mph (or 50mph to 5mph). I push the brakes as hard as possible without wheel lockup or ABS actuation. You may want to scale this down to half for soft pads.
Finish the bedding procedure by driving at least 10min (usually 20min) at highway speed, allowing the brakes to cool to normal operating temps.
Park and let them sit for at least 1 hour to cool down.

Or if you have gadgets, PBR recommends warm up the rotors to 120F, then do 1x stop every 1mile from 50mph at 0.4g :)
 
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There is a paste that you can put on the pad to re-seat the pad. (I forget what it's called) Usually comes with new pads.

I have found, in the mountains fade comes from not using the manual gear selector going down hills and using the brake too much. If this is the case they will be hot and the wheel will be hot too.
 
Positive reports so far, good thing we had what was needed. Made sure to grease everything properly, and he found a spot to bed them.

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There is rotor seasoning and pad bedding. Usually, people skip seasoning as it is a multiday process and not practical to do.

Bedding... it takes ~300 miles of mixed driving, and this is why after you get a brake job at the dealer, they recommend driving more careful those miles.
Obviously, you don't have that option now, so you'll have to do a performance brake bedding. The tricky part is that you are using street pads that do not operate well at high temps.

Anyway, you do need some roads with little traffic and a 50mph or more speed limit and as fewer stops as possible. That sounds like a state road and that's what I use. It is also advised to time this when there is light or no traffic. I usually do this late in the evening or at night.

If you search online, you'll find many variations, mostly for regular street pads/cars. Here is what my procedure is, a concoction from docs from Brembo, IPD, PBR, and the forums I frequented over the years. I used this on all my vehicles for many years, but I have performance pads, except for the LX rears that are OEM. I do use this procedure on OEM pads to but your milage may vary. What I'm saying is that you should use your own judgement as I'm not familiar with your truck (looks like it is modified) and I do not have experience with bedding front OEM brakes as my truck has TRD BBK Tundra brakes.

The idea is to gentle warm the brakes, then thermocycle the brakes a few times, and finally cool them down in a controlled way.

During the procedure you should never lock your brakes or activate the ABS!
Unless specified to stop, do not completely stop as that will deposit pad material on the rotor! Off course you should stop if you have to (traffic, stop signs, etc.).
Pick your roads wisely so you are not speeding. You should pay attention to your brakes not where the cops are.
Cooling brakes is not done by parking the vehicle but by driving at highway speeds.
Keep the windows down when doing it so you can use your nose. No smell means you are not heating them enough. All pads smell even if the ones claiming they are prebaked. If you do not have experience with this the smell might feel excessive, but it does smell awful.

I start by warming up the brakes by performing 2x 50-65mph to 5-10mph stops, light to medium. If you have soft pads, I'll probably use 10x or more 30mph to 5mph stops to be gentler.
Next, I do 2x back-to-back heavy stops from 65mph to 10mph (or 50mph to 5mph for you) at a point just prior to wheel lockup or ABS actuation.
I drive for 10min to allow the brakes to cool.
Then I warm up the brakes again with 3x light stops in succession.
Finally, perform 6-8x heavy stops in succession from 65mph to 10mph (or 50mph to 5mph). I push the brakes as hard as possible without wheel lockup or ABS actuation. You may want to scale this down to half for soft pads.
Finish the bedding procedure by driving at least 10min (usually 20min) at highway speed, allowing the brakes to cool to normal operating temps.
Park and let them sit for at least 1 hour to cool down.

Or if you have gadgets, PBR recommends warm up the rotors to 120F, then do 1x stop every 1mile from 50mph at 0.4g :)

How are you qualifying “soft” pads usually?
 
Artie, the unintended adventures are probably no fun but I admire your resilience and how easily you bring people together on the go.

Now that you got some fixes in place...

I would still caution if you're at all feeling any fade or brake pedal softness, it's a critical situation with stock pads at high gross weights.

Combined with grades, the margin to an emergency runaway situation is not far. I would immediately go much much heavier on engine braking as the stock pads may only have the heat capacity to stop the rig once.

I do use engine braking even on flat roads when towing heavy to come to a stop.
 
Ok, update time with new exciting problem solving adventures!

@WreckDiver1321 is a super star, massive help and sounding board. We tackled the job in his available window and finished promptly at the end of it. It couldn’t have gone better. Rotors definitely had signs of over heat but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting… interesting. Pads were the same, not great but not terrible. @WreckDiver1321 gave me a great route for a bed in drive and it was perfect to incorporate @doru procedure. Braking is now as it should be, awesome! I was able to make 7 laps of the prescribed route, that plus the drive back to camp netted me 75 miles, I then parked for one hour as instructed.

We hitched up and headed towards Glacier NP, we decided to drive until it got dark, that’s 10pm around these parts so we crashed at a rest area. Route was great, no reason to brake, lots of long coasting downshifts when stops were coming, in all I was able to take it extremely easy. The one time I did come to a complete stop was a pee break, I measured the temps on all brakes: cruiser fronts were 120°, rears 100°, trailer 80°. Really taking it easy. This morning we had a 2 hour drive into Saint Mary’s camp ground, same type of driving. There is one downhill section coming into the park, I engine braked and used brakes, no issues. At the bottom I pulled off to check temps, this was the most I’d used the brakes since the bed in process 380 miles ago. Fronts 240°, rests 220° camper left 180° camper right 280°…. INTERESTING!

So, it looks like I either have a brake trailer adjustment situation going on or something else. Both shoes are clearly making contact with the drum so right side could be tighter than left. My other thought is grease intrusion on one side bit I’m not experienced enough to know how that would effect the temps. Some other info of note, trailer brakes very grabby at low speeds, left side will lock up in gravel and even locked up in a downshift to 1st in proportional mode, the right side feels like it’s stopping but I have no visual or audio evidence of lock up because of my driving position. When we checked the temps the right side (hotter side) is making slight contact, leading me to believe it is too tight, it’s slightly squealing as well at a slow roll… again, sign of too tight.

This was my first trailer brake job ever, it seemed straightforward enough and I’ve had drum brakes on other vehicles so I’m not totally blind going into this. My thoughts are to jack each side and check adjustment by spinning wheel,. I can only get one side at a time up and I have to do this while hitched for safety so the camper won’t shift.

For those wiser than I, should I pull the drums and inspect? What symptoms does grease intrusion cause? My thoughts are this is an unequal adjustment as the hot side was still within reasonable temp range at 280°.

What’s yalls thoughts?

We’re at this campsite for 4 days so I have time to check stuff, next camp is on other side of glacier. There are towns close enough so I’m sure I can source trailer brake parts if need be, I’m sure I’m not the only midwit with these issues around these parts..

Here are terrible quality pics of cruiser brakes:

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It may be worth taking the trailer to an RV specialist to take a look at it if you're not sure. The closest one would be on the other side of the park, in Kalispell, but I do know there are traveling techs that may come to you. Worth looking into.
Thanks is for the intel on Kalispell, this is a convenient location once we wrap here at glacier. I can limp around for our next spot and then head there before hitting up some of your secret spots.

My move now is check how tight they are and see what I think. I can’t jack it up without being hitched because of the way this campsite slopes. One side at a time is safe while hitched and I don’t need much hight for my tests. Tests include spin wheel with and without brakes engaged. I’m sure some wiser than I will make some other suggestions.

Good news is we’re here for a few and have some hiking to do.
 
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It may be worth taking the trailer to an RV specialist to take a look at it if you're not sure. The closest one would be on the other side of the park, in Kalispell, but I do know there are traveling techs that may come to you. Worth looking into.
@Artie the delta between the two isn’t within any sort of standard deviation I can defend. @WreckDiver1321 is on to something here. You’d likely be ok for this trip, but this should be sorted eventually. Though tbh I’d bet this occurs regularly and people just don’t know as they aren’t shooting all their wheels with temp lasers after use. Please update as your trials and adventures are interesting and insightful.

EDIT: random thought: have you greased your hubs recently? I’m sure you have, but wanted to plant this seed about your trailer.
 
@Artie the delta between the two isn’t within any sort of standard deviation I can defend. @WreckDiver1321 is on to something here. You’d likely be ok for this trip, but this should be sorted eventually. Though tbh I’d bet this occurs regularly and people just don’t know as they aren’t shooting all their wheels with temp lasers after use. Please update as your trials and adventures are interesting and insightful.

EDIT: random thought: have you greased your hubs recently? I’m sure you have, but wanted to plant this seed about your trailer.
Yes, I grease these bearings after every one of these big trips, they are usually 5-6k miles and once a year. Plus, replacing the brakes came with new drums which house the hubs. The hub and bearing grease job is one I’ve done on this trailer 8 or 9 times, I at lease have some experience with this task so I’m not going in completely bind there. However, this was my first brake job on it.

I do agree that I’m likely suffering from too much information and possibly obsessing over something that’s not a catastrophe, but being so far from home and just having the cruiser brake repair fresh on my mind I feel like it does deserve some diag. If the temp difference between the two was 30-40 it would be a little high but nothing to fret over, 100° needs a look taken.
 
Given its a trailer and it’s been a while since I did a drum brake job, after making sure your pistons were working properly, installing the new shoes and springs correctly, and replacing the drums, did you manually adjust the tension on the back side of the brakes with a flat head screw driver and spin each wheel to gauge seating tension of the new shoes? This is how it used to be done even through self adjustment was a thing. It may be you have to much adjustment on one side vs the other which would result in higher temps and drag as you described.
Been a minute since I did drums on a trailer though and not sure what year yours is. Also, if you have a brake controller in your vehicle, what’s the gain set and have you played with that in the hilly areas?
What you describe is shoes that are not adjusted properly on your trailer which is what I would check first.
 
Given its a trailer and it’s been a while since I did a drum brake job, after making sure your pistons were working properly, installing the new shoes and springs correctly, and replacing the drums, did you manually adjust the tension on the back side of the brakes with a flat head screw driver and spin each wheel to gauge seating tension of the new shoes? This is how it used to be done even through self adjustment was a thing. It may be you have to much adjustment on one side vs the other which would result in higher temps and drag as you described.
Been a minute since I did drums on a trailer though and not sure what year yours is. Also, if you have a brake controller in your vehicle, what’s the gain set and have you played with that in the hilly areas?
What you describe is shoes that are not adjusted properly on your trailer which is what I would check first.
Yes, I did the initial install and put a couple hundred miles on it and adjusted again. Enough friction to feel while spinning but not too much to require force to spin the tire. The little star wheel with a screw diver, just like you’re familiar with. These are electric so no piston, there’s a big magnet that grabs the drum and expands the shoes, the amount of magnet force is determined by the brake controller by sending more or less voltage. I have the tow pro elite and I’ve been trying to find a good setting. They have been doing unusual behavior and I’ve adjusted once on this trip. Very grabby at low speed so I’ve backed off a little. There’s been more controller adjustments covered in my next post.
 
Back with more details. Checked tension on wheels, the hotter side (passenger side) was a click or 2 looser than the cooler side (drivers side). The drivers side seems slightly tight so I back of one click and it seems to match the other side. The fact that the hot side was looser doesn’t make sense to me so there may be more going on in there. I’m holding off on more investigation for now, I’ll drive it at this adjustment and see how it does and wait for feedback from the group. I’m in a good spot and with engine braking and careful driving this is a manageable situation and shouldn’t detract from our trip for at least another 10-12 days.

The gain on my tow pro elite is set rather low, I’m assuming this is because the brakes are new and the clearance is little. With the proportional setting they are very grabby at low speed and seem to engage slowly at first, I don’t recall this previously so I need to read the manual to see if there is an engagement setting or boost setting or something. I switched to the more traditional user controlled mode and the gain is set to 3, I’ve adjusted it some up and down on this drive to glacier. This setting may have contributed to the hot on one side situation. That or I’m wondering if one side is getting a better voltage current allowing for unequal braking force per side. I need to check that wiring with my meter, I’m assuming I can just pull the emergency pin to engage the brakes and take a voltage reading to make sure that they are the same. Could be a connecting at the brake there.

Thanks and any input is welcomed!
 
Given its a trailer and it’s been a while since I did a drum brake job, after making sure your pistons were working properly, installing the new shoes and springs correctly, and replacing the drums, did you manually adjust the tension on the back side of the brakes with a flat head screw driver and spin each wheel to gauge seating tension of the new shoes? This is how it used to be done even through self adjustment was a thing. It may be you have to much adjustment on one side vs the other which would result in higher temps and drag as you described.
Been a minute since I did drums on a trailer though and not sure what year yours is. Also, if you have a brake controller in your vehicle, what’s the gain set and have you played with that in the hilly areas?
What you describe is shoes that are not adjusted properly on your trailer which is what I would check first.

Yup, that's where my mind was taking me too. The "star wheel". It's usually reachable from the back-side of the hub so no disassembly required.

Artie - was this adjusted when re-packed the bearings, with just enough drag (coarse farm grade equipment/process).

Goal would be to balance the brakes (though not sure the temp delta suggests its completely necessary unless you're still having braking problems?) Perhaps worth a flick of one tooth. Probably safer to loosen the tight (higher temp) side. Trick is to ensure whether flipping the gear up or down is the loosening. (see graphic and link below)

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Yup, that's where my mind was taking me too. The "star wheel". It's usually reachable from the back-side of the hub so no disassembly required.

Artie - was this adjusted when re-packed the bearings, with just enough drag (coarse farm grade equipment/process).

Goal would be to balance the brakes (though not sure the temp delta suggests its completely necessary unless you're still having braking problems?) Perhaps worth a flick of one tooth. Probably safer to loosen the tight (higher temp) side. Trick is to ensure whether flipping the gear up or down is the loosening. (see graphic and link below)

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Yes, I did adjust at bearing repack, this was also when I installed the brakes. The process was install, adjust with some drag, drive a couple hundred miles and adjust again. There is drag on both of them and it’s not excessive, I can spin it he wheel around and there’s noise but it’s not stopping easily, there is some free spin. When the wheels are off it feels much tighter but that’s because there’s not 80 pounds of wheel and tire to spin. I followed this guys guide.

The strange thing that I think you confused on is that the tighter side was the cooler temp side… I was expecting the opposite. This is why I’m thinking to check the voltage.

Thanks for the detailed brake instructions, I can confirm that turning the wheel up (screwdriver down) does make the shoes tighter.
 
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