Surge brakes

[Local46er]

Just bought a new boat and trailer to me. It's a 2007 load rite tandem axle trailer with surge brakes. The trailer is a five pin flat plug. The question I have is when I go to back up the trailer the brakes apply. I need to put a bolt in the hole in front of the surge brake controller to keep them from applying when backing up. I have a seven by five plug from my vehicle. The guy told me that when you plug it in and put it in reverse the brakes won't come on. Any advice or information.

Thanks neil.

 

[Scott Danforth]

you have disk brakes, and the blue wire on the 5-pin plug is for the backup lockout solenoid. wire your tow vehicle with a 5-pin flat plug, and the blue wire gets hooked up to your backup lights.

or wire your tow vehicle with a 6 pin or 7 pin and use the adapter to 5-pin to get the same thing.

 

[04fxdwgi]

^^^ #1.

That's providing the reverse solenoid / backup light power is working. Put a test light on the pin for the blue wire and see if it has power when your backup lights are on in reverse. I've had a solenoid go south and disc brakes certainly held trailer dead stop when trying to back up. Some trailers w/ dic brakes don't have the automatic solenoid setup and the lockout pin is needed to use reverse, which I find kind of odd / lacking.

My truck has the 5 pin and 7 pin round connectors there from the factory. I rewired the trailer with a 7 pin round pigtail. Like it better than the 5 pin flat connector.

 

[Scott Danforth]

his traile has the 5-plug, not his tow vehicle. 12 volts will not magically appear, it needs to be sourced from the tow vehicle.

 

[poconojoe]

I don't mean to hijack this post, but how does it work when you have drum brakes?

 

[Scott Danforth]

drum brakes are designed to "self energize" going forwared, and do not provide any significant amount of braking torque in reverse simply by the geometry of the brake shoe and the actuator. This is why there are two different brake actuators on surge brakes. without a lock-out reverse solenoid on drum brakes, and with a lock-out reverse solenoid with disc brakes.

 

[Local46er]

Thanks guys. I will put the tester on it tomorrow, and yes it has disc brakes.

 

[Lou C]

You need power to the solenoid and make sure the solenoid has a good ground.
That's one thing I like about my drum brakes; free backing never had s problem.