'04 Avalanche w/Towing Package

[BSarte]

Hi,

Recently bought a 2004 Avalanche and it has the Towing Package from the factory.

I pull a car trailer that has electric brakes and when I had it hooked up to my Suburban, I had an after market electric brake actuator that had a manual slide bar on it so I could adjust the trailer brakes so if they were kicking in too early (locking trailer brakes up when I barely touched the vehicle brakes), I could adjust the signal going to the trailer brakes. This adjustment was very common as when the trailer is empty, the slide bar setting was lower than when I had a load (car or vehicle) on the trailer, thus fine tuning adjustment was done almost everytime which was fine.

In the Avalanche, it has the 7 pin plug to hookup to the trailer which supplies the brakes lights and signal to the brakes to actuate when the brake is stepped on.

My question is how do you adjust the brake signal setting? Checked the owners manual and it is of NO help. The only thing I see for any interface with the trailer brakes is the knob at the end of the shifter lever, which you are supposed to depress when you have the trailer attached.

How do you adjust the brake signal from the Avalanche back to the trailer?

Anyone run into this?

Bruce

[jdmccright]

You still need an aftermarket brake controller. The Avs didn't offer an integrated controller until 2009 models. Some GM HD trucks offered it starting in 2007, but read some of those have issues. My guess is that somehow your trailer brakes are reading the "STOP" lamp voltage as the signal which is either on or off...no modulation.

The slider you refer to is the "gain" input that adjusts the electric brake voltage signal according to the controller's inertial sensor and brake input. More gain means that the trailer brakes are applied more firmly in proportion to the controller's sensors. Some controllers have this slider work opposite to logic...moving it to the left INCREASES gain instead of to the right, etc. This is not to be confused (as you may know) with the manual brake slider that lets you apply the trailer brakes separately to correct any swaying or to help with descents down steeper grades.

Finally, some controllers have a delay setting to when the trailer brakes are applied once the controller senses that the truck brakes are being applied. Hope this helps!