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

Video Transcript for Review of Demco Brake Actuator - Surge Brake Actuator - DM8203332

Hello everybody, this is Jeff at etrailer.com. Today, we're gonna take a look at this Demco 12 inch Adjustable Channel Down Hydraulic Drum Brake Actuator with a 20,000 pound gross towing weight capacity. 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, the deceleration occurs, and the momentum will push your trailer toward the rear of your vehicle, and with this surge brake system, this actuator is triggered as your trailer moves forward once your tow vehicle starts to slow down. And when this happens, the actuator will contract, it applies force to the master cylinder in the back here, and this in turn supplies the necessary hydraulic pressure to engage your trailer's brakes. Now, this does use an acetal copolymer lining between the inner and the outer case, provides a nice smooth operation as this actuator telescopes in and out.

You can see it is an adjustable channel up front here, has five different mounting positions for your coupler. Now, the coupler's not included, we do sell those separately on our website. Now, the height on this channel, we go from the very bottom to the very top, it's right at 12 inches tall. The width, which will be measured inside to inside, it's right at three inches. If you noticed, this has a nice primed finish to it to help prevent rust and corrosion, and this is a heavy-duty steel construction.

We mentioned the master cylinder back here, it is a composite master cylinder, which is very durable and efficient. Uses a glass reinforced nylon construction to resist rust and corrosion, and it offers a large reservoir, provides increased capacity for your brake fluid. You can see up at the top here, uses this automotive style diaphragm cap to create a completely enclosed system, helps prevent contamination of your brake fluid. And this does include this breakaway cable and hook. Now, that is required by law, and the reason is it prevents a trailer runaway situation.

Basically, when you install this or hook up to your tow vehicle, you'll take this cable with the hook and the keeper here, and you'll run this to the tow vehicle, hook it under the tow vehicle, so what happens in case of this becoming detached from your tow vehicle, it'll pull on this cable, which will activate the lever here, again, which will activate the brake cylinder back here to apply the brakes in a runaway situation. And again, it is required by law and it is included. Now, this is a weld-on installation. It does mount to a straight three inch wide trailer tongue. It is made in the USA.

Few specs again, this is for trailers with hydraulic drum brakes, gross towing weight capacity on this is 20,000 pounds, maximum tongue weight, 2,000 pounds, this goes by a model number of DA20. And one last note I do wanna mention on this, because this actuator does not include a reverse lockout, it is recommended that you equip your trailer with either a reverse lockout solenoid that'll install right back here, or 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 12 inch Adjustable Channel Down Hydraulic Drum Break Actuator with the 20,000 pound gross towing rate capacity..