Emergency Brake activating cable.......

[SurfingCane]

Curious what y'all do with it when towing? How you "connect it"? I've seen several different ways and tried a few. But, the way it's suppose to work (if the trailer came unhooked while driving) it would never activate the brakes because the safety chains would catch the trailer first. As you can see in the picture. Mine is pretty long. It always seems to get in the way, come unhooked (due to the cable length) and drag, etc.....

[kmarine]

The brake cable is designed to engage the brakes in event the chains fail. This of course is a last effort with hydraulic surge brakes And is the reason why they are not legal in some states and in other states like Illinois require a dot inspection every 6 months to insure people are properly maintaining these high maintenance brake systems. . It will only slow the trailer faster in the event of brake away.

[markj]

I attach mine to my truck with a carabiner.

[Skidave]

Ha, I had an idiot move about 6 years ago. I drove away from my house and forgot to put the hitch pin in through the hitch. Got out of my neighborhood and I kept hearing a strange sound. Didn't stop because I was in a rush. Made it to the first traffic light. Turned green and I accelerated to go through the intersection. I heard a loud bang and thought someone rear ended my trailer. I start looking out the back window and see my boat and trailer heading towards me. It was rolling, but I wasn't. It hit me, and pushed me forward. As it pushed me foward , the brake safety cable got pulled and engaged. It broke the thin cable, but stopped the chaos. I have a 'S' clip that is closed around my cable and open on the other end that attaches to my hitch assembly. Surprisingly, the only damage was where the trailer hit the plastic bumper step on my suburban (oh and my pride as my wife shows up with the hitch pin in her hand). So add that to my blown wheel bearing, blown tire, tree limb smashing the truck windshield while towing, and hitting a piece of someone's blown tire with a traile and having it flip up and smash against the side of the boat...just another day of towing.

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[wakejunky]

I've done something similar to SkiDave....Got the boat/trailer about 2 miles from the shop, went through an intersection that was crowned and the hitch went up and then back down and the trailer went up and unhitched itself, The trailer barely hit the back of my truck before the emergency actuator actuated the brakes and stopped the trailer. I was in front of a body shop and one of the guys was running out with a floor jack before I even got out of the truck. We had the trailer jacked up and back on the hitch within a couple of minutes. Dragged the trailer back to the shop with the brakes actuated and burned them up, I didn't know how to disable the brakes so, I just dragged it back.

Lesson learned and on a side note, learn how to de-activate the brakes if the emergency cable has been actuated.