Trailer Brakes Locked

[schick]

I just brought my boat home from storage and now I cannot back up because the brakes lock. If I back down hill it is fine, but trying to back up a grade they lock up. Anyone have any quick suggestions since my boat and trailer out in the street?

Thanks

NE Piker

[pig n jig]

Your wiring harness might not be getting power to the brakes. They are made to lock up when not hooked up, so the trailer doesn't roll backwards on you. P N J

[revrat]

Check the wire in the harness that sends power to the reverse solenoid in your surge brake actuator. It should be blue. If you have voltage to that blue wire when the reverse lights are lit, you have a bum solenoid. Some harnesses have been spliced directly into the reverse light on one side of your truck or the other. If your solenoid wire is spliced directly to one of the reverse lights and the bulb is out on that side, that could also cause no power to that wire. Ususally the problem is in the connection at the hitch though.


If you need to get out the street real bad, you can open up your brake system and push out the fluid. That will disable the hydraulic action of your actuator allowing you to back up. Just crack those bleeder valves open and and back on up. Be sure to clean up your brake fluid after.



Edit to add.........

Some brake actuators come with a piece of metal that you can install into the actuator to keep the master cylender from compressing just for the purpose of backing up without the use of the solenoid. Maybe you have this?

[bassnman30]

Your problem may be in the pig tail. With a tester I found out this was my problem. I took a separate piece of wire and passed up the main back up wire that was used on the pig tail.
I cut the plastic on the main wire and attached the extra wire to it. Then I attached the other end to the other side by doing the same as mentioned above. This in turn caused a by pass of the pig tail back up light.
Easier done than said.
If further explanation is need I can rewrite the process in a different manner.

[Christopherkeene9]

Guys all of the above is only true on disc brakes not drums!

[revrat]

Originally Posted by Christopherkeene9

Guys all of the above is only true on disc brakes not drums!

That's very true, but a surge brake system with drums won't lock up like that when you try to reverse. That's why there's no solenoid for drum brake actuators on surge brake systems. I don't know the physics behind it though. When I switched from drums to disks on my new axle, I had to replace the whole acutator assembly to get the reverse solenoid and I had to add the 5 pin pigtail with the reverse light power instead of the old flat 4 pin connector that was already there.

[bassintom]

some trailers have a pin you have to stick into the tongue to keep the brake actuator from working in reverse.you didn't say what kind of boat you have or what type of trailer/brake actuator so we're all guessing right now