Surge Brake Lock Out?????

[td in nc]

Does anyone have a similar pin on their boatmate trailer. I have looked through boatmate info and the actuator manuals and have not found anything on this pin. It has BM stamped on the head so I am assuming it is original. Best I can tell it is used to lock the surge brakes, but I thought the lock outs required a special key which is used on each side of the tongue. Just curious if anyone else has this? trailer tounge.jpg

[DAFF]

No not me.... I often use a skid steer to move trailers in and out of the shop. Mine has no such hole, opted in a large C clamp vise grip used in body work in the holes on each side of the tongue.

[CornRickey]

My pin is on the side and about a quarter off the diameter of that one

[HyperCVAD198]

Dunno if this is any help - but I will share our experience with the surge brakes: At the time we had just bought the boat, hadn't moved it much, and I was trying to get it into a covered bay at our storage place - up to that point, I'd never had to back it into a spot. Every time I would get farther than 10-15 feet, the surge brakes would lock down, and I'd try to figure out what I was doing to cause this. Spent about an hour and a half frustrated, thinking I was screwing something up. Fortunately, the wife went and Googled the problem. Turns out, you can take the 5 prong electrical connector, and turn it upside down (where the 5th, uncovered prong is not connected, but the other 4 are firmly secured.) After you've done that, turn on the trucks headlights. Doing this disengages the surge brakes, and you can move it without an issue. I thought there was no way in the world this would work, but sure enough - it did the trick.

[CornRickey]

This only works if you have the lock out solenoid which you can (should) have it wired to the reverse circuit.

[SquamInboards]

This only works if you have the lock out solenoid which you can (should) have it wired to the reverse circuit.

Right, this doesn't work on older trailers with mechanical-only brake lockouts. There are lots of different designs of brake lockouts, some better than others. I've never seen one with a pin as large as the one in the first post, but I have a similar looking trailer and had a roughly 1/4" diameter hole in the top of the tongue, about 8" back from the coupler. I use a 1/4" stainless bolt to stick in that hole for a lockout when I need one.

Many trailer tongues have an oval-shaped opening in the side, where you can see the coupler section slide back and forth to activate the brakes. You can put a large nut in the slot behind the pin that goes through the tongue, and wrap tape around the tongue to hold it in place. Of course, you need to take that out when you go down the road! There is a tool for this, but it tends to fall out easily, because it's for "yard use only."

Photo credit: wakeworld.com