New Surge Brake questions

As part of the restoration of my 1998 Schutt Industries M101a3 I have replaced the entire defective surge brake unit with a new one from Balcrank Industries. Decided to go with a new unit instead of just the piston.

Got it installed fine, but I notice that the new piston has quite a bit more resistance than the old unit. The actuator will engage the brakes but a good amount of force is needed being pushed on the lunette. What I am finding is that with no weight in the trailer, both forward and reverse motion is not enough force to engage the brake. Is this normal? It's not a problem with an empty trailer, and maybe that is the way it is supposed to be?

I haven't tried any kind of higher speed braking so maybe that is what I need to experiment with. Any thoughts on this?

Regards,
OH58D

Well spring is here mabe next time you go to home depot you take your trailer an put 10 bags of mulch in it ... Impretty sure you do not have an issue usually if you did you would have slop in the tounge an it would slam in any direction,,,,just a thought

It sounds as if your old piston was well worn. When I rebuilt my A2 surge assembly, it does take significantly more force to activate the brakes with an unloaded trailer. With a loaded trailer, it works just the way it was designed; which is when you need the brakes the most.

I'm interested in your old surge assembly if the only problem is a bad shock and you want to get rid of it.

Your old shock was probably dead.