Troubleshooting Trailer Brakes Damaged From Breakaway Pin Being Pulled and Sparks from Battery

Question:

I picked up my new Grand Design 220RK last week and during the trip home through the mountains the brake away switch melted. This engaged my e brakes which then fried. My battery was destroyed as well. Upon inspection I noticed that the break away pin was pulled. I just received my Nev-R-adjust break assemblies from etrailer and will be installing them tomorrow. Meanwhile, when attempting to install my new AGM battery I get big sparks when attaching the ground cable after attaching the positive cable first. My 30 amp systems work as they should except electric levelers. My questions are: What could be causing the sparks, is this sparking normal? Is the inverter associated with the ebake system? Could it be affected? What other DC system components could have been affected? My electric front levelers do not work on shore power. Is this normal?

asked by: George S

Helpful Expert Reply:

I'm really sorry to hear about the mishaps on your brand new trailer! When reading through your descriptions the first thing that comes to my mind is the possibility that there's an exposed wire somewhere along the trailer that's making contact with the frame. This is essentially powering the frame so that when you attach the ground cable it's creating those sparks (which is not normal).

If this isn't the exact cause of everything, there's at least something going on with the factory wiring on the trailer that needs to be located. The inverter wouldn't be connected in any way to the electric brake assemblies but an issue like the above-mentioned scenario could potentially affect them (e-brakes would be grounded to the frame as well).

Your best route at this point is to try and trace any wiring you can from the connector at the front to the light assemblies at the rear, up to the battery, and to any other installed components like your jacks. Most likely a lot of the wiring is pretty well hidden so you honestly might have a lot more luck bringing the trailer back up to the dealer. Since it sounds like it's brand new, I would think anything like this should still be covered under warranty.

expert reply by: Chris R