Demco Hydraulic Brake Actuator - Drum - Primed - 12" Adjustable Channel Down - 12,500 lbs

Video Transcript for Review of Demco Brake Actuator - Adjustable Channel Surge Brake Actuator - DM8103432

Hello everybody. This is Jeff with etrailer.com. Today I'm gonna take a look at this Demco 12-inch, adjustable, channel down hydraulic drum break actuator. Has a 12,500 pound gross tow weight capacity and has a primed finish to it. Now this hydraulic actuator will activate your trailer's brakes when your tow vehicle slows or stops. Basically what happens is when you apply the brakes in your tow vehicle, deceleration occurs, and the momentum will push your trailer toward the rear of your vehicle and with a surge brake system this actuator then triggered as your trailer moves forward, once your tow vehicle starts to slow down.

And when this happens, is this actuator will contract, applying force to the master cylinder in the back here and this in turn will supply the necessary hydraulic pressure to engage your trailer's brakes. This one here uses an acetal copolymer lining to provide a nice smooth operation between this inner portion and the outer case, so the actuator will telescope in and out very easily. We mentioned this as an adjustable channel down. Has five different mounting positions for your coupler. Now the coupler is not included.

We do sell that separately. And the channel down design, you can see most of the channel is down. That allows for greater drop for tall trailers. The channel height, we had mentioned. If we measure from the very bottom to the top, it's gonna be right at 12 inches.

The channel width, which is measured inside to inside, is three inches. This is a heavy duty steel construction, has a nice primed finish to it. Now it does use a composite master cylinder back here, which is durable and efficient. It's a glass-reinforced nylon construction, so to resist rust and corrosion. And it provides a large reservoir to provide increased capacity for the brake fluid.

If you notice up at the top here where you put your brake fluid in, it does use an automotive style diaphragm cap. Creates a completely enclosed system to help prevent contamination of your brake fluid. Right here, this is your breakaway cable and the hook. It's all included. You can see it has a latch on this hook, but this is required by law. And what this does, it'll prevent a trailer, runaway situation. So what you do is when you hook up your trailer to your tow vehicle, you'll also hook up this breakaway cable to your tow vehicle. And when it's hooked up, what'll happen is, if by chance, this comes disconnected from your tow vehicle, it'll pull on this cable, which will activate the lever here which will then supply that pressure again to your master cylinder to apply the trailer brakes. So it does prevent a trailer runaway situation. And as we mentioned, it is required by law. Now this is a weld on installation. It is designed to mount to a straight three-inch wide trailer tongue. This part is made in the USA. Application. This is for trailers with hydraulic drum brakes. Gross towing weight capacity again, is 12,500 pounds, maximum tongue weight of 1,250 pounds. This does go by model number of Da10. And one last thing I do wanna mention about this actuator, because this one does not include a reverse lockout solenoid on the back here, it is recommended that you equip it with either a reverse lockout solenoid that'll screw into your master cylinder back here, or that your trailer would have free-backing brakes, so that you could drive in reverse without this actuator triggering your trailer's brakes. But that should do it for the review on this Demco, 12-inch adjustable, channel down, hydraulic drum brake actuator. With the 12,500 pound gross towing weight capacity.