Demco Hydraulic Brake Actuator - Drum - Primed - Adjustable Flat Mount - 20,000 lbs

Video Transcript for Review of Demco Brake Actuator - Surge Brake Actuator - DM8202052

Hello, everybody, this is Jeff at etrailer.com. Today I'm gonna take a look at this Demco adjustable flat mount hydraulic brake actuator for drum brakes. Has a 20-000 pound gross towing weight capacity and is in a nice primed finish. Now, this hydraulic actuator will active your triggers, 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 towards the rear of your vehicle. So with a surge break system, this actuator is triggered as your trailer moves forward once the tow vehicle starts to slow down.

And when this happens, the actuator will contract, meaning the inner slide right here will go into the outer case, and it applies force back here to the master cylinder. This in turn will supply the necessary hydraulic pressure to engage your trailer's brakes. Now, they do use an acetal copolymer lining between this inner slide and the outer case. Provides a nice smooth operation as the actuator telescopes in or out. Up front here, the adjustable plate, you can see, has four different mounting positions for your coupler.

Now, the coupler's not included. We do sell those separately. And it is designed to use flat mount coupler attachments only. Just to give you the dimensions of the holes on the flat mount, if we measure the horizontal measurement center to center this way, it's gonna be right at 4 1/2 inches horizontally. And if we measure 'em vertically center to center this way, it's gonna be right at 2 1/4 inches.

Now, this is a heavy-duty steel construction. Has a nice primed finish to it. And the master cylinder back here, it is a composite master cylinder. Makes it durable and efficient. Basically it's a glass-reinforced nylon construction to resist rust and corrosion.

Does offer a large reservoir which provides increased capacity for your brake fluid. And up at the top here is the cap you can remove to put fluid in. It is an automotive-style diaphragm cap. Creates a completely enclosed system to help prevent contamination in the brake fluid. Also if you notice on top here, comes with this cable and hook. This is a breakaway cable and hook. It's all included. And this part is required by law because it prevents a trailer runaway situation. Basically what you'll do is when you hook up to your tow vehicle, you'll take this cable, extend it to the tow vehicle, and then using this hook with the keeper, hook it to your tow vehicle. And what happens in the case if the trailer happens to unhook from your tow vehicle, it'll pull on this cable, which'll activate this lever here, which again will apply the force to the master cylinder to stop your runaway situation. And again, it is required by law. Now, this part is a weld-on installation. Does mount to a straight three-inch-wide trailer tongue. This is made in the USA. A few specs on this, the application, this is for trailers with hydraulic drum brakes. This does have a gross towing weight capacity of 20,000 pounds, maximum tongue weight of 2,000 pounds. This also goes by the model number of DA20. And one last note I do wanna mention about this, because this actuator does not include a reverse lockout in the back here, it is recommended that you equip your trailer with either a reverse lockout solenoid that screws into your master cylinder or to have free-backing brakes on your trailer so that you can drive in reverse without this actuator triggering your trailer's brakes. But that should do it for the review on this Demco adjustable flat mount hydraulic brake actuator for drum brakes. Has a 20,000 pound gross towing weight capacity.