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Brake Surge


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Just moved the boat out to my house and whenever I stepped on the brakes hard enough to stop the trailer would surge/lunge forward. I checked brake fluid level and made sure it wasn't stuck in the "backing" position. I also tried backing it up thinking something was caught but that didn't help either. Any ideas what is causing this? Oh, it's a tandem axle Zeiman trailer.

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I as well have a Zeiman trailer and I just thought it always did that. I did only get the boat and trailer last fall.

When I start and stop it clunks pretty hard. Is it not supposed to do that?

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nope. I have had my quite a while and it has never done that before. It has always stopped really smoth. I don't know how hard yours lunges normally but mine was throwing my Silverado forward pretty good.

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I'll Give it a shot. Will just have to figure out how to pressurize the system n order to bleed. Normally I would push slowly on the brake pedal but this appears it's going to be more of a challenge.

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The clunking/surging is a sign surge braking system failure. It's like pushing on the brake pedal and having it go straight to the floor. It could be air in the lines, a master cylinder seal/o-ring being shot so the piston is just moving back and forth and not generating braking force. WHen I had that problem, it was the master cylinder. It was relatively inexpensive to repair (compared to most other boat repairs), but will depend on which actuator you have.

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Clunking on take off is just the mechanism moving from its compressed back position to uncompressed forward position. I just accelerate slowly until the slack is taken up.

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I'm willing to be you lost a lot of fluid for some reason or, the master cylinder is toast due to a blown seal or something.

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