wrote:


This sounds odd. Having a brake in the trailer should help the
stopping power and is a good thing, right? Why would anyone want to
avoid having a brake system if the towing load demands its use? People
must have been buying undersized trailers because of the low price, not
because their being brakeless.

Jay Chan

Just telling you what the dealer said.
The magic weight # here before you are forced to have brakes is 3200 or
3500 lbs. (I forget off the top of my head)
Before the introduction of SS disc brakes, the old drum/shoe type was a
bit of a maintenance nightmare when regularly dunked in salt water.

Dr. Dr. Smithers wrote:
Don,

Thanks for the explanation, I had surge brakes on my trailer and couldn't
imagine that they had two different trailer brakes, one for freshwater and
one for sal****er, but there have been crazier situations.

I had a smaller boat and trailer w/o any brakes (approx. 2500 lbs.), and
then a heaver boat and trailer (approx. 3500 lbs) with surge brakes. I
would assume there is a maximum weight for towing w/o trailer brakes, but I
couldn't tell the difference between the two. With both of them, you have
to anticipate your stops, it takes substantially longer to stop when pulling
a trailer.


I've read that electric brakes are safer than surge because they come on
as soon as you hit the brake pedal. Surge on the other hand has a
slight lag as the moving parts in the coupler must push oil in a master
cylinder and then out to the actual brakes. Trouble is...electric brakes
are not suitable for immersing in salt water...yet!

Sounds like it is like most EZ-loader trailer. Surge brakes. The
coupler where you attached to the tow ball slides and activates a master
cylinder to provide braking. The 4 wire plug has a ground wire in the
rubber shielded connector and the other 3 are running lights and brake /
turn signals for left and right.

I have checked the trailer, and I am now sure that it has "some kind"
of brake. It surely looks like it is a surge-brake as what you have
suggested because the trailer coupler is quite oversized.

The other thing is that the wiring actually has 5 wires instead of 4
wires as what I said previously. I guess my memory was fooling me.
The wiring plug totally has 4 metal prongs. Two of the wires goes into
the same prong.

Anyway, now that I know my trailer has a surge brake, I don't need to
worry about submerging the trailer into sal****er (as long as I wash it
afterward). Great!

Thanks.

Jay Chan

You can tell a surge brake system quite easilt. Look at your coupler
and see if there is an oversized 'box'.
http://www.championtrailers.com/techsup.html#techretro

Yes, I have checked my trailer, and it has an oversized coupler box.
And I have also checked under the trailer and see a wire going into
each wheel assembly. Now, I am sure that my trailer has a brake and it
is a surge brake.

Thanks for the picture.

Now, I have a question:
When I released the brake in the towing vehicle and started towing,
I often heard noise coming from behind me (likely coming from the
connection between the towing vehicle and the trailer). Is it a
standard behavior of a surge brake? May be the surge brake had engaged
when I stopped the car, and it remained engaged. When I released the
brake in the towing vehicle and stepped on the gas panel, the surge
brake could not respond fast enough to release its brake. That caused
the hitch ball of the towing vehicle to impact on the coupler of the
trailer, and this made noise. Is my understanding correct? If this
was the case, I should go easy on the gas panel when I go from stop to
start the vehicle.

Jay Chan

Thanks for the tip. I washed the trailer; but I didn't know that I
should be using penetrating oil for those components in the trailer.
Now, I will make a note on this and make sure I will do this.

That's jsut a bit extra that I do.

It helps keep corrosion off the steel parts. Even after washing, the
bolts etc, can still rust. This helps prevent that.

wrote in message
...
On 9 Nov 2005 11:00:46 -0800, wrote:

This sounds odd. Having a brake in the trailer should help the
stopping power and is a good thing, right? Why would anyone want to
avoid having a brake system if the towing load demands its use? People
must have been buying undersized trailers because of the low price, not
because their being brakeless.


If you dunk brakes in salt water they won't last long.
I suppose you cas flush them with fresh water every time but you are
still soaking all that hardware and allowing it to rust up.

The law requires brakes on boat trailers over a given weight. 3000# in
California, and I would hate to tow my 4400# rig, even with my 3/4 ton truck
without brakes. I used to get about 2 years out of a set of Drum brakes. I
am going on 3 years with my Kodiak disk brakes, and they have been
fantastic. Stop well, and even the pads were still in great shape. Did
change pads this year, as lost a wheel bearing and another nice thing about
disk brakes. They kept the wheel from leaving the trailer. The rotor did
wipe out the pad and itself. You just lean over the fender and hose off the
brakes.

Here's an excellent article on boat trailer wheel bearing maintenance:

http://www.pugetsoundanglers.org/Fis...ler_brakes.htm

On 10 Nov 2005 19:05:14 -0800, "Tim" wrote:

Here's an excellent article on boat trailer wheel bearing maintenance:

http://www.pugetsoundanglers.org/Fis...ler_brakes.htm

Thanks, Tim. That *is* a good site.

--
John H.

"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
Rene Descartes

On 10 Nov 2005 19:05:14 -0800, "Tim" wrote:

Here's an excellent article on boat trailer wheel bearing maintenance:

http://www.pugetsoundanglers.org/Fis...ler_brakes.htm

Tim - that's a great site but there are a couple of procedures that
concern me. During inspection, clean the cups and cones thoroughly and
inspect each roller while rotating it in the cage. If any roller shows
any sign of cracking or flaking then replace the bearings. Look at the
raceway and see if there is any flaking or dents. If so, replace the
bearings. Most bearings will show signs of fatigue or contamination
long before failing and a thorough inspection may allow you to replace
the bearings in a location that is far better than the side of the
road. Installing the race (or cup) with a hammer and punch can be
disastrous unless done very carefully (gently). It's best to use an
arbor that fits the race initially (piece of pipe, socket etc. or a
block of hard plastic or wood (careful of debris) to start rather than
strike the cup directly. Once flush you probably need to use a punch
as few of us have anything that will fit properly but the punch should
be a softer material (hard plastic, aluminum, brass) if possible.
Gentle is the key word here - lightly tap and move around the OD to
keep the cup square and not in a bind. When tightening the nut you
should rotate the hub full rotations in both directions as you tighten
to insure the rollers are aligned - not to seat the race which should
already be seated. Tapered rollers have a tendency to skew until
properly seated and rotating while tightening will help prevent this.
Also, bearing supply houses can be helpful in locating bearings and
seals and may be more economical. Finally, his comment on bearings
made in China is right on. There is some decent stuff coming out of
China but there is a lot of junk. None of it is on a par with Bower or
Timken so is it worth the risk? It makes me sick to walk into a
trailer supply house and see a barrel of bearings piled in with no
protective packaging. Talk about junk - bearings are most likely
brinelled before you ever install them.

Point well made, Tom.

especially about wheel bearing replacement.

And you're both right about using cheap "generic" bearings. It's hard
to go wrong with Timken, Lufkin, Bower, or NDH. national makes a great
seal too!

You notice that the trailer mfj.s don't use "no-name" bearings and
seals from the beginning. there's a reason for that. No one else should
either.

From what I've seen,t he "imported" bearings don't have the right steel
hardness in the bearing or race core, and the chromium plating
sometimes isn't as good either.

Also the cost difference betweden the good stuff and the cheap stuff is
pennies to small dollars.

no need to short change yourself.