My son bought a boat and sent me this pic of his hitch. Never saw one like this. Anyone know why it's designed this way?
I see a breakaway cable on top which tells me trailer has brakes but a 4 wire plug so not wired for brakes right?
You're right, surge brakes. Used on boat trailers because the water submersion is hard on electric trailer brakes.
It is a surge brake. Our old tent trailer had it. When the break away cable breaks, the trailer applies its own brakes.
Surge brakes work great for their purpose but I doubt those are working. Looks like (and I may be reading the picture wrong) the trailer ball hitch portion has been welded to the cylinder housing rendering the assembly inoperable! If so, the setup could be illegal. Might want to at least investigate that. Replacement surge assemblies can be easily found on line. Boat trailer brakes are always a can of worms!
Surge breaks work fine....when they work....which isn't very often. My old boss had a landscape trailer with surge breaks....had to be careful not to put too much on there when the roads were wet because the truck brakes would lock up before the surge breaks would kick in....it couldn't push on the truck hard enough to activate the surge breaks. Fun times.
Late to the party but surge brakes was my first choice too. Have towed some trailers with them and really disliked the jolting when going over any somewhat less than ideal roads as the surge brake would kick in and out.
Surge brakes that have been disabled by welding. 1) because they do not work well 2) because when they do actually work they suck I will go out on a limb though and say the break away probably still works though. They were probably tired of the trailer being jerky when driving.
IF it's less than 3,000 lb. gross. Only the smaller trailers don't require brakes or need state safety inspections. In Virginia a single-axle trailer grossing over 3k requires both brakes and annual inspections.
Thanks for all the input guys. I'd just never seen those before. Now I know all about surge brakes and how they work.
My first experience with surge brakes came when I was 18 and using my uncle's 1985 GMC 3/4 ton 6.2L diesel (farm truck, 4.10 gears and manual tranny) to pull a big Uhaul tandem enclosed trailer. I was moving to Milwaukee for college. I was backing it empty up my parents steep concrete driveway and I'm hearing all this tire squealing and bouncing/noises going on. Being a kid and not knowing what surge brakes even were, I realized much later on in life there is an override one needs to engage when backing the trailer up a grade due to those brakes. LOL I learned two things that day.....what surge brakes were and that diesels have gobs of torque down low. LOL I basically skidded that trailer up the driveway with the truck just off idle. I had no idea the trailer was even resisting. It was my first time driving a diesel. I couldn't go very fast on the highway as it was a 4 speed manual with 4.10 gears. I remember 1st gear being super low as well and pretty much useless when not towing heavy loads.
