My plans for this afternoon changed and I wanted to continue this topic, so I went and got the trailer back to the house this morning. I took one drum off the front left, which is indicative of all of them, as they all went together the same and look the same. I confirmed that the backing plates labeled LEFT are on the left:
All drums look fully seated with no shoes showing:
In the following pic, the left of the photo is the forward direction with the smaller shoe on the front, indicating that it is installed on the correct side per the eTrailer article:
This is the rear shoe; it appears to have even contact:
This is the front shoe, which still appears to be wearing in, with the top still untouched:
Here is a video demonstrating the magnet's power, no clue if this is normal or abnormal:
Here's the kicker ... this morning when I picked it up, it's able to lock the brakes up with the controller set to max and the trailer empty. So maybe the self adjusters just took REALLY long to adjust? (I towed with crappy brakes all day Sat.) Or maybe it's getting better as the shoes wear in? IDK, but if they were working like this last weekend, this thread wouldn't exist right now.