Trailer brake problem-air over hydraulic discs

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Originally Posted by Mark Faul

On my Performax trailer it has air over hydraulic Kodiac disc brakes. 4 times now the outer pad has somehow left the caliper. Twice on 1 wheel and now two others. Then the piston pulls the caliper over against the rotor and kills the rotor and caliper. Plus the piston gets extended far enough out to where it leaks fluid and soon the master cylinder is emptied and no brakes.
One thought was the piston was retracting too far and too much clearance causing a lot of slop and possible vibration. I installed a 2lb residual valve and it didn't happen for probably about 10,000 miles this year. But happened again today.

Calipers slide really easy back and forth. I didn't notice any excessive run out over the winter. Didn't measure, but wasn't obvious.

Any thoughts or ideas?

I also have the Kodiak disc brakes on my triple axle trailer. My trailer uses the electric over hydraulic pump to apply brakes. I have installed disc brakes on a lot of trailer and have found this type of failure is caused by plumbing the brake lines directly to the calpier with no brake hose as kodiak recomends on all sprung axle installs. The caliper does not slid when in use and wears outer pad very quickly. when replacing pads you should be bending tabs over on pads to insure they stay in the caliper. I would recomend calling Kodiak and speaking with their tech guy, he is very helpfull. I have also found that the calipers and pads are available form any Napa store, the only part not available is the rotor. the rotor is a Kodiak only part. even with this problem I would never go back to electric drum brakes. I hope this is of some help.