Surge brake question (don’t know if it’s normal)

dcf1999

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
45
I’m using my buddies boat this summer and it has surge brakes. The boat was previously stored at another buddies house and he never did any maintenance and the maintenance he did do was pretty shady tree.

The master cylinder was replaced a couple years ago and I replaced a broken brake line last year... bled the brakes until clear fluid came out and all seemed well with the world.

When I push the tongue in manually (not while bleeding) to test the brakes, the tongue eventually goes all the way in. There is good resistance but it doesn’t “stop” like a brake pedal would. It will go all the way in. The brakes do activate while doing this though but not as much as I believe they should (you can still turn the wheels with brakes applied all the way but They never do “lock up”.). Is the tongue supposed to eventually push all the way in? It’s almost like what a car would do with a leaky master cylinder (still pressure on brake pedal but slowly goes to floor).

Second thing i notice is when I’m backing the trailer up using my tractor (no flat wire harness connected) it doesn’t lock up. With surge brakes, anytime you reverse the trailer it should lock up (unless you're going slow or sometimes downhill) I’ve even tried slamming it (backing up fast from a stop while in reverse) and still nothing.

Trailer is dual axle with disk brakes on rear axle

Any ideas...

Thanks!
 

GA_Boater

Honorary Moderator Emeritus
Joined
May 24, 2011
Messages
49,038
Bleeding the brakes is good. But until there are no bubbles, not just clear fluid.

I think there is air in the lines and need more bleeding, as a starting point anyway.
 

dcf1999

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
45
Ok. I should have mentioned I bled about a pint of fluid out of each caliper. Probably overkill but...

I will try bleeding them more though and see what that does.
 
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