Question About Trailer Breaks

[treeskier]

I am about to take possession of a 2016 240 Limited. While I am very familiar with the boat I am purchasing I have never seen the trailer. It’s a 2016 galvanized Shore Lander that Yamaha supplied with the boat when purchased new.

My question is what’s the arrangement with the trailer breaks. Are they electric and require a controller or are they activated through the trailer tongue? The trailer was never used by the prior owner he just used it to store the boat in the winter at the dealer where he bought it.

I will not tow the boat often but when I do I’ll be towing it with a 2019 Ram 1500 I’m assuming that’s plenty of truck.

 

[swatski]

Those are coupler activated hydraulics, not terrible.

2016 trailers came with ply tires that vibrate and make fender bolts fly away, in some cases a fender would disconnect causing blowout. There are upgrades, Carlyle (OEM) used to provide radials at no charge but they stopped recently, I believe no longer do it, still may be worth exploring.
Tire upgrade to radials would be the first thing.
The fenders have also been redesigned so you may want to inquire with Shorland'r - it's a safety thing, and they know. They redesigned the brackets and the fenders vibrate less.

I've been towing with no major issues, new radials inflated to max (50psi), new fenders, I also have the bow stop pushed back to equalize the load of the boat better (they come extremely tongue heavy from factory), there are posts here on those, very easy mods.

Those trailers come (in some cases at least) essentially un-greased... There are zerks under the equalizers between the axles I didn;t know about.

The factory jack is borderline unsafe, so be careful with the boat on the trailer. I replaced mine.

Let me know if yiu need links.

--

 

[treeskier]

Thank you that answers the question for me. We have a lift at our house so we only trailer a few miles a slow speeds to put in and take out once each per year. With the old boat we took a a few longish trips to the GF's son's in NJ and trailered the boat but I solved that issue by giving him custody of the old boat.

 

[biffdotorg]

If the trailer has not been used, it may be worth taking it to a trailer shop to have the master cylinder checked for the brakes. It may very well be dry and not functional. We bought a boat before that was bone dry to the point that the braking system didn't even work. It was a lighter 20' boat, so it wasn't even over the legal brake requirement, so we never fixed it. But on these bigger boats, you gotta have working brakes. So a trailer shop would be my recommendation just to give it a once over on the brakes and hubs as a minimum. Then onto the other things if they are an actual issue.

Good luck,

 

[treeskier]

Thanks ... good idea I will do that.