[stanleyz]

I'm just trying to figure out where the clips go lol. Actually I have that same setup, 7000 axles with 12 1/4 by 3 3/8 brakes. I don't know if the magnets were off the lever or not. By the time I could see them they were hanging by the wire but they may have come off when I moved the drum away from the lever. One magnet sure looks funny, it is worn in a very strange way. The other one looks like normal wear. Both clips were gone.

I have to say that if my brakes were working they weren't working very hard. The trailer is 12 years old and I've towed it a good bit. The brake primary shoes look like new with very little wear. I destroyed the front pads on my f350 in 38,000 miles the last two trucks I towed with went well past 50,000 and did not wear nearly as far. And when I start out and squeeze the brake controller to test the brakes I can barely feel the trailer grab.

I take your point about the adjusters. The Lippert web site now describes their self adjusting brakes as "forward adjusting". I don't know if that's a recent change or not. The Dexter site describes their's only as self adjusting "during normal driving". Not sure what that means. I haven't gone out to look but if there are two access holes, then at the end of the runout on adjustment i'd just have to take something and push the adjuster off the wheel and back it off a turn or two. Sounds like a plan to me.