I have the same thing, a boat trailer with surge brakes and a car
trailer with electric drum brakes. Everything I have read says that
electric brakes are a bad idea on boat trailers. For example, from
championtrailers.com:
"Electric brakes are commonly used in utility and RV trailers. In
this application, their painted automotive grade components provide
excellent service, if properly installed, wired and maintained. In
boat trailer application, however, they fare poorly. The wet launch
boat trailer application, especially in salt water, normally destroys
electric brakes within a season or two."
As for the car trailer, I wouldn't bother, unless your brake system
is in bad condition and needs to be replaced anyway. My drum brakes
work well enough that I can't really see the change as being worth
it. As for how to do it, it's easy. The axles have a flange on each
end that the backing plate bolts to. Remove four bolts and the whole
backing plate assembly comes off. Buy what you want and bolt it on.
Converting the boat trailer to electric brakes, besides being a bad
idea, is a bigger job. The coupler designed for the hydraulics would
have to be replaced with a solid type. If your trailer has a flat
four wire connector, it would have to be rewired with a round six or
seven wire connector that includes a brake signal.
I have used etrailers.com for a lot of parts. Even though I'm still
annoyed that they sent me the wrong parts last time, I suppose that I
would still recommend them. Their website also has a lot of articles
and videos that answer a lot of questions.
BTW, what kind of controllers are you running in your trucks?
-Steve Trovato
strovato@optonline.net
At 09:12 AM 9/23/2010, eric@megageek.com wrote:
>Here is a topic I don't think we ever discussed before, so let me throw
>out my question.
>
>I have a few trailers (one car and one boat) that have brakes on them. One
>has a surge type brake (boat) and the other as an electric drum brake (car
>trailer.)
>
>Ideally, I'd love to convert them both to electric disc brakes (I already
>have brake controllers in both my trucks.) Here are my questions...
>
>For the trailer that already has electronic drum brakes, is this a hard
>conversion?
>
>For the boat trailer with the surge brakes, I realize that there is more
>to it then just replacing the pads. Is it possible to do the switch.
>Secondly, and most importantly, this boat trailer is used for saltwater.
>Are disc brakes the best option for salt water?
>
>Finally, can anyone point me to some sources (online) for trailer parts?
>Thanks.
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