How should trailer brakes act?

[HATH]

When braking, do you want your trailer brakes to act like your vehicle brakes...hard stop = locking them up, gradual stop = non locking up? How do you test your surge brakes?
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[fish_fear_me2]

I like to feel mine drag but I dont like a hard stop. In a hard braking situation mine would be less than locked up.
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[Lundman]

Now days just about everything is on a YouTube video and available to see it before you have to attempt repair.

You can block your trailer tires and get a 4x4 or other board and pry your coupler back toward the rear to engage your surge brakes.

As far as feeling your surge brakes engage when pulling your boat just come up to a stop sign and you should feel the boat trailer come forward when you are coming to a stop.

Your Surge brakes should be SMOOTH - no lockups!!
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[HATH]

I did use the pry bar technique to get the brakes adjusted properly. The brake assembly has a sticker stating to rotate the wheel by hand and make your adjustment until you can't turn the wheel anymore and then back it off 10 clicks. I've done that and they pry bar does engage the brakes. I was just wondering how they should feel while pulling.
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[GEEZER]

They shouldn't completely lock up even in a "panic" stop. Find a relatively steep hill, driveway or such and try backing up. The trailer brakes will put the "whoa" on that idea unless you put the brake block on.
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[HATH]

Geezer,

Did you see my other post of how I got everything working? Frozen wheel cylinders and leaky zirc threads. I haven't taken the trailer out yet but I'm afraid that I won't be able to back up my driveway because it's steep. Will this be a problem? If so, what's the solution?
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[submoa]

My trailer has a piece of metal which fits in the slot on the trailer which stops the brakes from activating while I'm pushing the boat backwards. If I didn't have that I have no idea how you would back up a steep hill. If it were here I'd take a pic for you. Metal Craft is who added the axel and trailer brakes to my boat, they may have a source for that piece of metal bracketing to sell.

As for the surge breaks locking up, I had some deer try and commit suicide in front of me a few years ago. I was only going about 15 miles an hour as I could see the deer, I moved into the oncoming lane of traffic and right as I got up to them they thought they should see if they could make it across the road. I slammed on the brakes and was very impressed with how well they worked, I'm not sure if they locked up but they came awfully close if they didn't. Even going that slow I'm pretty sure I would have hit those deer if the trailer didn't have brakes.
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