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Coupled brakes


BogMonster

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Some Land Rovers have a max towing figure of 4000kg with "coupled brakes" rather than the 3500kg which is the limit with conventional overrun brakes.

What does the coupled brake system consist of and what drives it? electrical? PTO?

I have never seen or heard of such a system apart from in the weights pages of the vehicle handbooks - somebody over on RIBnet has a 2.7 tonne RIB (yes it is a very nice one) and is struggling with the 3500kg limit by the time a trailer is added but might be able to keep it under 4 tons.

Any ideas anybody? :unsure:

Ta :)

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I assume the one in the photos is just a combined pump/vacuum pump as there seems to be two cylinders (one either side), the left hand one seems to have no lines attached so could possibly be the pump side (running a locker?), I have something similar in the garage which came off a piece of medical kit, the back half would appear to be just a motor.

The bloke says it's a compressor so I also assume (and the air lines to the trailer seem to back this up) that it's just a standard air braked system. Would have thought that it uses an electrical actuator operated from the brake pedal and handbrake. :blink:<_<

If your interested in fitting coupled brakes it might be worth also looking at electric braking; not sure if it's cheaper but seems to be a damn site easier to come by.

Check out the following for an explanation.

http://www.etrailer.com/faq/brakecontrol.asp

HTH.

M@

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Guest diesel_jim

Bogmonster..... are you likely to get pulled in your neck of the woods towing something "heavy"? or are the plod quite switched on there?

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Coupled brakes are on the Land Rover Special Vehicles option list, If you ever see Land Rover Experiance Defenders at shows like Billing you'll sometimes see 110's parked up with Ifor Williams Tilt trailers and they run with coupled brakes. Its some thing I'd like to look at in the future so if you find any usefull info please share it with us.

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Bogmonster..... are you likely to get pulled in your neck of the woods towing something "heavy"? or are the plod quite switched on there?

Tut - pay attention James ;)

Taint for me - I'm trying to answer a question over on RIBnet about the feasibility of towing a bluddy big boat weighing 2.7 tons without the trailer. He's looking at a trailer with coupled brakes and the question is whether the vehicle can be fitted out to use them or not, because the trailer probably weighs about a ton and as such will be over the 3500kg limit for over-run brakes but probably within 4000kg.

I don't even get pulled for having no lights on my trailer though in a recent concession I have bought a trailer board I lash to the roof rack so that following traffic can see some brake lights and indicators, if they can't see an 8 foot wide bright orange boat then they deserve to get a prop through their radiator!!! :lol:

All I will say on the subject of brakes on my boat trailer is that I don't have problems with them sticking on at all even with regular dunking in salt water :ph34r:

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Guest diesel_jim
Taint for me - I'm trying to answer a question over on RIBnet about the feasibility of towing a bluddy big boat weighing 2.7 tons without the trailer. He's looking at a trailer with coupled brakes and the question is whether the vehicle can be fitted out to use them or not, because the trailer probably weighs about a ton and as such will be over the 3500kg limit for over-run brakes but probably within 4000kg.

Oh yeah.... :unsure: /skulking off mode/ :rolleyes:

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I test drove a 110 CSW some time ago that was used by LR to pull a huge trailer around to exhibitions and shows. It had air brakes and a coupling to run the air brakes on the trailer.

It was all good until you put the brakes on. Without the weight of the trailer it just tried to eject you through the windscreen. The brakes were either on or off!!!!

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Departing slightly from the topic, somebody was telling me the other day about an old RRC with an early electric pumped ABS system he was trying to fix.

Apparently it was fine until you touched the brake pedal even gently then all four wheels locked absolutely solid instantly and wouldn't come off until you loosened a pipe on the ABS unit to relieve the pressure.

Kind of an interesting "failure mode" to build in to a braking system :huh: not surprised they binned the electric ABS systems fairly quickly, could be rather fun if that happened on the outside lane of a motorway :blink:

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Coupled brakes are connected in a similar way to articulated/drawbar truck/trailer air brakes, some LR's have a additional vacuum pump over as well as the standard engine vac pump, later ones have a electric air pump system, obviously it's coupled to the vehicles existing brakes & these along with the trailer brakes operate together.

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