1994 Rwal

[BowtiePowerhouse]

how do you do away with this? it seems to cause more harm than good. more potential problems, faulty this faulty that, would putting a straight brake line through it resolve the RWAL entirely?

[ChevyWonTon]

Bypassing the RWAL completely could cause the truck to become dangerous to drive! Rear brakes are intentionally designed with less braking output than the front brakes to avoid locking the rear wheels before locking the front wheels. If this situation were to occur, it causes the vehicle to want to reverse its direction on the roadway.

Why? Because the sliding friction of tires is less than the rolling friction to the road surface, so the locked rear wheels will slide faster than the rolling front wheels and tend to find themselves leading the pack! This tends to be an undesirable event!

To demonstrate this problem, take a motorcycle out on the road and perform a panic stop with just the rear brake. (OK, don't really try this!)

When there is an ABS system controlling the rear brakes, it is possible to provide a higher amount of braking to the rear wheels and use the ABS to avoid locking the rear wheels. Pickups typically need less braking output on the rear wheels when empty but need more when loaded. RWAL allows a higher brake output at the rear wheels for when you're hauling a load but avoids the rear wheel lockup that would occur when the truck is running empty.

I think you would NOT want to completely bypass the RWAL for these reasons. For the sake of safety, track down the RWAL problems and make sure your RWAL is working correctly.