Trailer Brakes Decision

[Black Fox]

What kind of brakes come on new Bullet trailers? What’s everyone’s thoughts on hydraulic or electric brakes?

I just traded my 20XD for a 21XD and it’s fitted with hydraulic disc brakes. Considering the master cylinder is dry and previous owner never checked them I ‘d say the brakes haven’t worked in some time. I went to trailer shop to get some parts to start fixing brakes & they highly recommend converting to electric. Said they have done many boat trailers with never a problem. By the time I add brake controller it will be same cost to convert to electric vs rebuild hydraulic brake system. Not sure which way to go.

[21XDC]

My brake line failed inside my tube trailer and leaked all of the fluid inside. I replaced the brake line and all is well. For near 20 years these hyd brakes have been awesome. I have yet to need new pads. I would never switch to electric...

[CatFan]

You’ll need drums, backing plates, wiring, a 7-pin connector for the trailer and a brake controller for your truck and you’ll end up with brakes that aren’t as good as the disk surge brakes and need to be adjusted every 3000 miles. If you forget to dial it down, you’ll lock the wheels up in the parking lot with the empty trailer.

I have four trailers with electric brakes, do all of my own maintenance on all of them and I wouldn’t even consider converting my boat trailer to electric.

[Black Fox]

Thank you for response. I’ll redo hydraulic brakes based on advice. I’ve never had boat with electric brakes & wasn’t sure how they would do.

[Leonard Bullet21XD]

Some great advice from the guys on here. The less wires you have in the water the better off you are.

[1BADAIR]

Convert to electric how? There are two ways . Electric drum and electric over hydraulic. The later uses a trailer brake controller to turn on a pump to actuate the same style brakes you have instead of the surge master cylinder

[sowenssw]

I've never had electric brakes on a boat trailer, but I'm thinking there is a reason most of the boat trailer manufactures use hydraulic, seems like a bad combo electric brakes under water.

[Black Fox]

Company was recommending electric drum and not electric over hydraulic. I was thinking same thing, electric brake components and water typically won’t get along well. They kept saying how much more insulated things were now but still insulation is going to break down over time. I’m going to rework the hydraulic brakes. Thanks everyone for the advice.