Trailer Brakes

[Tom L.]

I think this is the right forum.

I was wondering how much trouble, if any, you folks with drum type trailer brakes have had? I am talking about regular dunking in the salt water. Not a couple times a year but as a trailer sailor I move my boat all around to different cruising grounds. Mostly in Florida. Com Pac has as standard drum brakes. I am looking at a 2003 boat that has drum brakes on it's trailer. I am afraid they may be in really poor shape. But I may be wrong.

I have heard a lot of talk about disc brakes being a better option for salt water dunking. But if you all have had reasonable luck with drums I would stay with drum brakes. Just wondering what has worked not necessarily the best but reasonable.

Tom L.

[CaptRon28]

I have or had 4 boat trailers that originally came with drum brakes. Frequent immersion in salt water really did a job on them, all failed within 3 years. One problem is that they are hard to flush out after a launch or retrieval, assuming that the ramp even has a fresh water hose available, and everything within the drum starts to corrode. Wound up switching all to discs with coated or stainless rotors and aluminum calipers. Since disc brakes are a more "open" design, the salt water will not tend to stay inside the system. Only problem in switching some ComPac supplied trailers to discs is that that their wheels could be too small to get a rotor and caliper behind them. I had to put 13 inch wheels on the 2 axle Horizon Cat trailer that came with 10 inch wheels. But there were other advantages to using the 13's. You also may have to convert the brake actuator to a disc version, or buy a new one made for disc brakes.

[Tom L.]

Thanks Ron. I was afraid of that. Now I have another $1400 to figure on spending for a Horizon Cat I am thinking about. Uck.

Tom L.

[CaptRon28]

Tom -

You can probably get the set of 4 disc brakes with the actuator for about $650 on sale. I used 10 inch Tiedown Engineering systems for the 4 conversions. These things go on sale several times a year at Trailerparts Superstore (www.easternmarine.com).  But - they will not fit behind the tiny 10 inch rims and tires. Minimum is 13. I got my 13's from them as well. You can probably do this for about $300. This is assuming that you can do it yourself. Labor would jack the price up. It's really not that hard to do. You're unbolting parts and bolting new ones on. The kits even come with the brake tubing and hoses. You would also have to relocate the 2 fenders about 2 inches higher.

I think I posted some photo's several years ago when I did my Horizon.