Demco Hydraulic Brake Actuator - Drum - Zinc - 12" Adjustable Channel Down - 20,000 lbs

Video Transcript for Review of Demco Brake Actuator - Surge Brake Actuator - DM8202531

Look at the Demco 12-inch Adjustable Channel Down Hydraulic Drum Brake Actuator with a 20,000 pound weight capacity. Now, this hydraulic actuator is what'll activate your trailer brakes when the tow vehicle slows or stops. Basically what happens is when you apply the brakes in your tow vehicle, a deceleration occurs and the momentum pushes your trailer toward the rear of your vehicle. With the surge brake system, that actuator right here, it's triggered as your trailer moves forward, once your tow vehicle starts to slow down. So when this happens, this actuator will contract back towards the end here and apply the force to the master cylinder right back here. This in turn supplies the hydraulic pressure to engage your trailer's brakes.

On the inside of this, they use an acetal copolymer lining, which provides nice smooth operation as this actuator will telescope in and out.The adjustable channel right here has five different mounting positions. You can see one, two, three, four, five for your coupler. Now, the coupler's not included. That we do sell separately on our website, and we do list it on this product page as a related product. It is a channel down design so you can see it's designed to go down.

This allows for a greater drop when you install your coupler to help level your trailer with the tow vehicle. It has a nice sink plated finish to it, offers excellent corrosion resistance, does meet 500 hour salt spray rating, so this is designed for Marine applications. A master cylinder I mentioned, which is right back here on the inside. It is a composite master cylinder which is durable and efficient. It's a glassed reinforced nylon construction, so it will resist rust and corrosion.

It offers a large reservoir, provides increased capacity for the brake fluid. On top here, if you notice, I unscrewed this. It has your normal automotive style diaphragm cap, and that'll help create a completely enclosed system to help prevent any contamination of your brake fluid.I'll go ahead and get that cap back and start it. There we go. If you notice, it also comes with the breakaway cable right here.

Basically what that's used for is this cable with this hook here will attach to your tow vehicle when you hook up your trailer, and this will prevent any situation where if your trailer by chance happens to come detached from your tow vehicle and it was in a runaway situation, it would pull on this cable, which would activate the pressure to the master cylinder, which would then apply the brakes on our runaway trailer. So it's a safety feature that will prevent a runaway situation of your trailer, but that is all included.Now, this is a nice heavy duty steel construction. If you notice the bottom here, the mounting brackets, it is a bolt on design installation. It has the six-fold mounting brackets. There's three mounting holes on each side. You can see two in the front right here, one in the back here, same way over here. Now, they do require to be installed with half inch by four and a half inch long grade five bolts. Again, they are not included. You would have to supply those to install this to your trailer. This part is made in the USA. Application, again, is for trailers with hydraulic drum brakes. Gross towing weight capacity is 20,000 pounds. Maximum tongue weight capacity is 2,000 pounds. Now the channel width, which'll be the inside here, that the coupler goes into, measurement on that is going to be three inches. The channel height, which will be measured from the bottom all the way to the top is 12 inches.It is designed to mount on a straight three-inch-wide trailer tongue, and the model number on this goes by DA20. One last note I do want to mention on this, because this actuator does not include a reverse lockout in the back here, it is recommended that you equip your trailer with free backing brakes so that you can drive in reverse without this actuator triggering your trailer's brakes. But that should do it for the review on the Demco 12-inch Adjustable Channel Down Hydraulic Drum Brake Actuator with a 20,000 pound weight capacity.