Electric Brakes On Komet Trailer

Besides the odd idea of disabling the trailer brakes, drilling holes in the tongue to promote tongue failures we've previously witnessed seems misguided.
It seems to me that failure mostly occurs with a heavily-sprung tow vehicle, long cantilever behind the rear axle, or an overweight trailer tongue. Combinations of those are a gamble.

I agree most of the failures I've heard about involve motorhomes. I check for cracks frequently anyway where the tongue enters the trailer (the big stress point), and remove the dolly wheel each time so it doesn't ground.

The hole in the inner tongue shouldn't have any effect unless bending stress is being transferred from inner to outer tube via the slot in the inner tube and the thru bolt/damper mounting. Another hole in the outer tongue could, but there's already a hole there for the rear damping strut mount as well as fittings welded to it (which are stress risers).

As for whether you would WANT to disable the braking system, I don't know. I've done it twice to get to/from contests where there were other brake problems. I don't intend to otherwise but it would be nice to be able to in a hurry if I had to.

One thing I imagine electric brakes would be useful for would be engaging them independently of tow car brakes if there is instability.

Yes, I've never used electric brakes but that capability sounds very nice (and have heard it is from others).

Personally find AlKo trailer brakes pretty easy to maintain.
Perhaps change the tongue compression damper more often?
Keep in mind that this trailer is 27 years ago. My previous Komet was 13 years old when I sold it and had few problems. Such is progress.

I changed the damper strut this summer. Not much different in force or damping than the one I removed.

If you live where things get rusty, routinely treat the Bowden cables with LPS-3. Grease fittings are there to be used.

I grease the fittings in the tongue every year, but those are for the bushings in the outer tongue tube. The cables are more difficult to treat but I plan to do it this spring. Must remove the parking brake cables from the central actuator rod and the backing plates, then spin the cables while pouring/squirting lube into the them.

Download the trailer manual (Spindelberger have it available, perhaps Anschau)

I'm from the old school. I have the paper manual that came with the trailer!

I would love, love, LOVE to hear what I could do to make this system reliable. But each time I've asked for input about a problem, I've gotten different answers. I agree when it's working properly, it's great. Keeping it working properly has been my challenge.

Chip Bearden