Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Just received boat, 22:5 ft tritoon on Bear tandem axle trailer. It has drum surge brakes. I was worried about surge brakes as I’ve had them before, and now they can have problems releasing. I have to go down long hills from my home and when I begin going to my seasonal site next year.

Sure enough, they are getting hot. The drums range between 150-210 or so after a long downhill. My truck does a great job with engine braking where I rarely have to use my brakes. But I think the trailer brakes aren’t fully releasing while I’m going down hill. I’ve already backed off th adjustment screw on the drum brake shoes. Hasn’t helped. I know there’s is a mechanical lockout feature if I buy that oval piece to fit in the surge mechanism area.

My question is, does anyone know of another way of making adjustments...possibly in the tongue area to make the surge part stiffer so the brakes release easier? I’m gonna have to do something. I’m waiting for a call back from Bear Trailers.

On my older and heavier boat that had disc brakes, I installed a brake fluid flow stop solenoid for backing and other conditions where I did not want the brakes to activate. I wired it into my backup lights for backing and put a lighted switch on the dash that would activate the solenoid whenever I wanted. Below is a link to a sample of what I used. I used a lighted switch on the dash so I knew if I left it activated.

I used this set up on an older truck. You probably do not want to connect the solenoid to your back up lights and a switch to avoid damage to your vehicle's backup light control. If you use a switch, you could deactivate any time you want to deactivate the surge brakes.

https://trailerparts.com/titan-dico-reg ... gJMn_D_BwE

Rbtnt, that sounds interesting. Thanks for the reply and suggestion. I’ll look into it. I know when I’m about to go down these lengthy downhills, and may just manually lock out the surge mechanism prior. My truck can more than handle the weight.

Your simple and cheap options are:

1 - Mechanical lockout. This requires you pull over before the down grade and pull over again when the grade is over (assuming you want to have brakes).

2 - Since you are pulling over twice (in the above scenario), you can also choose to pull over and let them cool off for a few minutes (lots of people do this).

If you don't want the cheap option then go electric as they only engage when you hit the brake pedal.

Surge brakes won't release all the way, when going downhill, the trailer pushes forward on the trailer hitch ball, and puts pressure on the master cylinder. They are intended to work like this so the trailer won't get squirrely behind the tow vehicle. 150 to 210 degree is nothing for heat on brakes. Normal brake temps are anywhere from 700 to 1200 degree's for disc brakes, drum brakes usually run a little cooler, but take longer to cool down, because of the bulk of the drums and size of the shoes. I really wouldn't worry about it. You aren't hurting anything.

Bob and Braden, thanks for the replies.

I have ordered a lock out magnet for the time being. As for the temps, I could smell the brakes and checked via hand help IR gun. As I recall they were in the 225+- range. From what you say there is no problem with this temperature or higher. Some say as long as your below 300, don’t worry about it. I guess I’m not used to this because of my electric brake experience on my RV’s. If anyone else knows their temps during long downhills, i’d like to hear them. Sounds like I may be worried about nothing. I did blow a bearing once on a boat trailer, and don’t look forward to doing that again. They were surge brakes also.

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to toss my experience into the mix. Last August I was pulling the toon west on 1431 (Palmer Crossing) north of Austin. It's a hilly thrill ride through Jonestown and on towards Marble Falls. I had done this stretch many times but this time began to smell heated brake lining. Got out and checked - the front left truck brake was over 600F. All the others were 200-250. I was clearly in a hurry. I gave it a rest and took it easier the remainder of the trip and things got all cooled down - back around 200. The trailer with the toon was about where I always see the hubs - about 15-25 over ambient. Our '09 F250 did not have Diesel Brake. Our new 3500 Ram does and it pulls our 17,000# 5r so nicely on those same roads that I hardly know it is following.