I bought a 20 ft gooseneck trailer last year that had been sitting for a few years. I went through and put all new lights and tires and bearings on it. It has 2 5200# dexter axles under it. One of them has electric brakes and I noticed that the brakes smelled hot no matter how much I adjusted them both with my controller and the adjusting wheel on the brakes. I wasn't really towing any weight with it either, they would do it empty. The brakes were pretty rusted up and I figurd they were sticking so I bought new brake assemblies and put them on there. I bought the trailer to tow my pulling truck mainly so the trailer is pretty much maxed out with a 8000# truck on it. I adjusted the coupler so that the trailer sat level when loaded up. I hauled it about an hour each way to a pull a few weeks ago and the brakes smelled hot again and I couldn't touch the hub on the axle with brakes. The other axle felt fine. The brakes don't really get hot when pulling a light load since I put the new brakes on, but towing that heavy truck on there isn't going to happen much longer if they are getting that hot. I can try to back the adjusting wheels off a little bit more on the brakes, but not much more. I don't think that the axle nuts are too tight, if it was one wheel I might suspect that but not since it is both of the wheels with brakes. Will putting brakes on the other axle solve my problem? It isn't cheap to buy new drums and brake assemblies so I don't want to throw money at that if it isn't going to help me.

Add the brakes to the other axle. You've got 6000 lb. brakes stopping 11000 pounds. The heat is "normal" for brakes working that hard.

I was hoping that adding brakes to the other axle would do the trick, a few hundred bucks for brakes sounds alot better than a few thousand for a new trailer.

Yep, you need brakes on the other axle. In the meantime you can adjust the brake controller to remove some braking effort from the trailer and shift it to the truck but you do need to find an equilibrium where you are not overheating the truck as well.

Do NOT adjust the wheel on the electric brakes to try to reduce braking effort - electric brakes don't work that way - turn down your controller instead.

Ordered everything to put brakes on the other axle today, hopefully it does the trick. 200 bucks including new bearings, seals, and everything. Alot better than an extra $1500 or so to trade up to a better trailer.

I tested the new brakes out on a 3 hour trip each way this weekend and the new brakes kind of helped. All 4 brakes were very hot while driving through the hill country but once I got on flat roads they didn't seem too bad. Definitely alot nicer stopping with 4 brakes instead of 2 and I bumped the brake controller from 9 down to 4. I had one of the new brakes feel kind of hot after my trip there so I jacked the trailer up and checked the drag and decided to back it off a click before my return trip. It was still pretty hot but not quite as bad so I'm going to back that one off another click as it probably still has too much drag.

On a side note I got about 10-11mpg towing my puller on an open gooseneck which weighs in around 11-12K. Truck is a CC/LB 4x4 with 285 mud tires. Does that sound about right or should I be getting better than that? 2/3 of that was in flat country and it was about a 350 mile round trip.

Wow brake controller set at 9, no wonder you were having heat issues.
I can't set mine above about 6 without worrying about the trailer brakes locking up with a fair amount of brake pedal. IIRC I've found 4 to be the optimal setting for me as well, pedal effort seems fine and trailer never seems to puch the truck.

This sounds strange. You may in fact have the controller cranked up too high. If your brakes are really getting that hot, they you are probably experiencing brake fade, which means that you end your trip with less braking capacity than when you started out.

Does your programming include turbo braking? I assume it does, which makes this issue even more puzzling.

Have you done a brake test where you take the truck and trailer up to about 20-25 mph and use the manual bypass on the brake controller to fully engage just the trailer brakes? If the wheels lockup, the controller is set too high.

Adding brakes to the second axle was definitely a good move.

Agreed - it sounds like the trailer is still doing too much braking - what are the temperature of the brakes on the truck itself when you observe the trailer brakes being abnormally hot?

I have no idea what the actual brake temperatures are but the truck brakes don't smell hot like the trailer brakes. I did test the trailer brakes out by using the lever on the controller and it just slowed the rig down like it should, definitely not locking the tires up. Above level 4 seemed like too much trailer brake and 3 is enough for in town but doesn't seem like enough on the highway. Since onlly the one brake seems to be really hot now I think that one might have been set a little to tight and was dragging too much. My programming does not include turbo braking (it's an LB7 so it doesn't have the variable geometry turbo).

My programming does not include turbo braking (it's an LB7 so it doesn't have the variable geometry turbo).

Doh!

Certainly sounds like you need an exhaust brake of some type so you dont have to rely so heavily on the service brakes.

Once you adjust the one remaining brake that is still getting hot, next time you tow pay attention ALL the brakes, including the ones on your truck. If the trailer brakes still seem hot compared to the truck brakes then you need to turn down your controller so the trailer is doing less braking and the truck picks up it's share. The trailer brakes should never overheat at the expense of the truck doing too little braking, or vice versa.

In your situation with that load, and brakes on both axles on the trailer, you should have no issues stopping without overheating anything...exhaust brake shouldn't be necessary.

You may want to check the voltage reaching each wheel. Wire splices can create a voltage drop.

Well I towed the truck and trailer to a sled pull last night and everything was pretty good. I backed off the brakes on the hot wheel 2 clicks and I turned the brake controller down one click to 3.5. I took a hilly / curvy road for the 2 hours there and they were pretty warm, but not so hot that they smelled like they were on fire like they did before. I took the 4 lane for the most part on my way home and the brakes were cooler than the trip to the pull and weren't too bad at all, I had no concerns about them when I got home. I can't believe how big of a difference there is in the stopping power between having the brake controller on 4 and on 3.5. I like 4 better on the highway, 3.5 is ok for town and country roads.

Check to make sure your controller is wired correctly. I had my controller on a 2003 chevy 1/2 ton and then moved to a chevy 2007 3/4 ton and the wiring connection was different. I pulled our camper for 2 hours and the brakes smelled hot. After checking checking with UHaul they told me about the different wiring setup in the newer trucks.