Surge Brake Solenoid Help

[barthel]

Hi All,

I have an '01 Four Winns Horizon 180 on a single axle trailer. Trailer is equipped with disc surge brakes. The brakes had never worked, the system was gunked up and corroded when i bought it.

So, after going through the entire system, the last part to replace was the solenoid. I removed it, it was totally clogged and shot. Bought a replacement and installed it. The difference was, the one i pulled out was a single wire (hooked up to tthe reverse circuit), the one I installed was a two wire. My understanding was that it didn't really matter which wire was connected to which, as long as one was power and one was ground (please correct me if that's wrong) So I hooked one wire up to the reverse pin, the other was grounded to the white wire (gound) on the trailer pigtail directly.

Anyway, the surge brakes work awesome now, but the lockout solenoid does not work in reverse. When we back up, the brakes lock and I have to use the manual lock out. I have checked all connections and everything checks out. Lights and everything else works OK.

So, do I swap the leads? Is there something I missed or do i have to replace the solenoid with another single wire?

Any help or opions are greatly appreciated.

 

[kjsAZ]

Unfortunatey there are two types of solenoids available. A piece of junk called the blocking type and the one you should install called the bypass type. It would be important to know what you had and what you got. The bypass actually has 3 ports. One coming from the actuator, one going to the brakes and one going back into the reservoir. The blocking type (should be made illegal!) is just in line with the brake line and all it does is block the flow. The problem is that when the brake is active and you activate the solenoid it just holds the pressure towards the trailer brakes...... Imagine that you have parked in front of a wall or another car downhill and want to back a bit. Now way.....

Solenoids are just a coil and polarity doesn't matter (at least for the ones I have seen). Your old one used the frame as the ground and the new one has a wire for it (better). If you hear it click when you switch into reverse it's working. You can even test it with a 9V block battery but it will be empty soon.

 

[barthel]

The one I pulled out was single port (straight through) and it was replaced with one of the exact type (single port, straight through). I made sure the flow was pointed in the proper direction, it really could only go on one way. The master cylinder has no port for a bypass type.

 

[kjsAZ]

Then you always have to make sure that the actuator is fully pulled out before you switch into reverse. Makes it a pain in the ..... The actuators I have seen so far could all be modified to a bypass set-up. Some had to be drilled, others had a screw covering the hole.

I'm pretty sure you won't like your brakes with that solenoid.... I didn't know that they exist and therefor didn't pay attention when I added disc brakes to my first trailer in the US.After the first day of use I got the bypass type......