We called a few repair facilities in the local area to see if we could bring in our fifth wheel and truck to have them exorcise the demons from our braking system. We also called the guys down in Menifee who did last week’s diagnosis and they stated the codes that were being shown in the past indicated some wiring or magnet anomaly but crummy ground could be the problem. Peggy and I were about to hook the trailer up to the truck for a test drive when one of the repair joints said they could see us in a few hours. We hooked the trailer to the truck in earnest and started our careful pull to Lancaster. I knew we would have to be extremely cautious because the last time the truck was hooked to the trailer the brake controller in the cab was trying to tell us something about a mysterious short in the brakes and the brakes seconded the motion when they quit functioning at an idle. It was particularly worrisome in city traffic since the brakes were compromised in stop-and-go driving and we weigh 10 tons.

After manually applying the brakes in the campground, we pulled out onto the road and the brake controller worked perfectly. We drove around for a bit, stopping and going, doing panic stops, applying the brakes during prolonged idling and adjusting the brakes for daily use. We drove a few miles up to CA-14 and bought diesel before returning through both city and open-road driving and the brakes worked perfectly. No cryptic codes were displayed on the controller at any time.

It seems that my replacing the slightly funky looking ground terminal was the trick. Who’d athought? Anyway, we drove back to Soledad Canyon, pulled into exactly the same space and set up for another day. We did not have to re-arrange our schedule and I can quit being a fretful crybaby about our RV. We called the repair guys and told them we would not be bringing in the Invader. I think I will drink some whiskey.