"____m___~¿Ô___m____" wrote in message
...
Don White wrote:

Some dealers have told me a coupler is available that doesn't need the
little lockout device.
Can't remember if an extra wire was used from your backlights or
whatever.
That would be for electric brakes.
Here the poster is asking about a hydraulic serge brake.

I currently have hydraulic surge brakes which have no lockout on the
actuator. The brakes (drum brakes) themselves have some sort of feature
that allow backing up. I'll try to find the make/model and give a pointer
later.

As for the original poster and question: for what it's worth, I used to
have the type of surge brake system with a lockout lever on the
coupler/actuator. Just like you describe yours, it really was flakey and
almost unusable - you could put it in the lock position, but almost any
change in speed while backing (for instance speeding up, slowing down,
temporarily stopping, etc, etc. etc!!) would cause it to de-lock. Since I
do 99.9% of backing solo, this made this feature virtually worthless to me
and I simply quit using it. I found that it was not needed in flat areas -
99 % (not quite 99.9) of the backing I did at home, or at the ramp area -
both areas are flat and/or down hill. The occasional parking lots that
required backing are also generally flat. The only time it was a factor was
on the occasional uphill backing, and the lock-out worked OK in those
situations if I kept pressure on the coupler (which is easy when backing up
hill - even when you stop, the pressure remains.).

Hope this helps.
Cam