Newell Coach Pulling Right Upon Braking

[Jon ghiles]

Im pretty mechanically inclined around a car but at times I get a little intimidated with the grand scale of this motor coach. Not wanting to assume that I would know everything what it takes to maintain this huge beast I wanted to reach out and see if what others might suggest.

Anyways, to the issue at hand. The newell runs great and the steering is right on and seems properly aligned. But when braking it pulls to the right hard and it takes almost a good 1/8th turn of the steering wheel to straighten it out while breaking.

Any suggestions???

[ccjohnson]

Check air pressure in tires. Have your brake slack adjusters checked & set. Just about any truck service shop should be able to do this.

[Chester B. Stone, Jr.]

Jon, what are you driving? If you have shoe brakes rather than disk, you may have oil or grease on the shoes. This should not be a problem with disks.

[GringoPhil]

First off, if you are not that mechanically inclined, the last place I would be honing my skills are on the brakes. Think about it. Any mistake and the consequences are severe.

The pulling to one side or the other is due to one brake not functioning properly.

[77newell]

There are two ways that pulling to a side can occur. A brake on one side can be grabbing on the side toward which the coach pulls or a brake on the other side fails fails to engage.

If you have S-cam brakes you can see them physically actuate. Block the wheels (and the coach up), release the parking brakes, and then have someone actuate the brake pedal while looking and listening to the brakes. Do this with the system air pressure up to snuff and the engine off so you can hear better. I suspect you will notice something different from brakes on one side to that of the opposing wheel.

If you are going to mess about changing actuators you want to make damn well sure you get the instructions and follow them exactly. It isn't complicated but you don't want to screw up as there could be great blood-letting. Also you may need to get into the brake drums which involves jacking up a heavy axle, loosening monstrously tight lug nuts and messing about with heavy drums. My approach is to do the work if I am confident I can do and buy the necessary tools to do the job easily and correctly for less than paying someone else to do it. I agree with GringoPhil that this job demands erring on the side of caution. I've done some brake work on my coach so I know us amateurs can do it, but man it was hard work and I probably would not do it again.

[NewellCrazy]

Awesome post Jon !!! Great information