Dexter Hydraulic Drum Brake Assembly - Free Backing - 12" - Right Hand - 7,000 lbs

Video Transcript for Dexter Hydraulic Drum Brake Assembly Feature Review

Today we're going to take a look at the Dexter 12 inch right-hand passenger side free backing hydraulic trailer brake assembly for 7,000 pound axles. This hydraulic drum brake assembly is a uni-servo design, which is used on trailers with surge type trailer brake actuators. The uni-servo means it has one plunger right here. This is a free backing brake assembly. The free backed design is designed to let you back up without engaging the trailer brake even if you're actuator is activated. You can tell a free backing design by they always have one shoe that has sort of a "D" shape to it, and that's this one right here. The size on this is a 12 inch by 2 inch passenger side trailer brake assembly.

Where they get the size from is the 12 inch would be the diameter which is measured from this shoe all the way over to this shoe. If we put a ruler on it, there's your 12 inch, and the 2 inch would be the width of the pad on the shoe. If we put a ruler on that, you can see there's your 2 inch width. This is a right-hand passenger side assembly, and the way you can tell that, now of course on a new brake assembly like this one, it'll have a sticker that'll say "right-hand side", but if that sticker wasn't on there, the easiest way to tell is you need to look at the length of the pad on the brake shoe. If you see, this pad goes all the way from here to here. This one goes from right here, right up to here, so this is the shorter pad length, this is the longer.

The shorter shoe or the pad length is a primary shoe, that'll always face the front of the trailer, so that means it'll go this way and that'll tell you this is a right-hand passenger side assembly. These brake shoes are lined with a nice automotive-grade friction material and it is fully bonded to the shoe, it's not riveted so it gives you a lot longer life, more braking torque. These are manual adjustment brakes. Here's your adjustment gear right here, so it does require a periodic manual adjustment. The backing plate on this has a nice heat coating to it to give you excellent corrosion resistance. The other thing I want to mention, if you notice, it does include this adjuster plug, and what that is, you pop that out and there's a hole there, it allows you to put your brake adjustment tool through there to adjust your brake gear there at the bottom.

Then you can put the plug back in. It's nice to have that because that keeps dirt from getting into your brake assembly and on your shoes. Again, the specs on this, it is a 12 inch by 2 inch size brake assembly. The mounting flange bolt pattern you can see is a five-bolt pattern here. Does include the mounting nuts that have the integrated washers on them already to install it. These are designed for axles rated up to 7,000 pounds, and they do require the use of 12 inch drums. That should do it for the review on the Dexter 12 inch right-hand passenger side free backing hydraulic trailer brake assembly for 7,000 pound axles..