Launch your boat without locking up your brakes. Free-backing brakes are a must-have if your surge actuator doesn't have a reverse lockout. 12" x 2" Marine-grade assemblies fit 14" to 16" wheels. Made in the USA.
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If you have a seasonal boat or a snowmobile trailer that's occassionally in lakes or on heavily treated salt roads, these are the brakes for you. The galvanized backing plates. stainless steel springs, and zinc-plated wheel cylinder all provide excellent rust and corrosion resistance so your trailer will be ready to tackle the season.
Pro Tip: If your trailer is near saltwater year-round, you may want to look into the increasing levels of corrosion protection that e-coat, Dacromet, and stainless steel components can provide.
Backing up your trailer might be the only time you don't want the brakes to work. Normally, this would be a job for the reverse lockout on your hydraulic actuator. But if you don't have a lockout, you'll need brakes that will you allow you to back up freely instead.
How do they work, you ask?
During normal forward braking, a fall-away shoe expands to catch your brake drum with enough force to bring your rig to a stop. When driving in reverse, however, the extra springs on these brake assemblies override the brake cylinder. This prevents the shoes from fully catching on the drums, which takes away your braking control, allowing the wheels to continue to turn.
Note: Free backing brakes don't activate when you're in reverse. So, keep in mind that a trailer breakaway kit will not be effective if your trailer were to disconnect from your tow vehicle while you're backing up.
If you often find yourself making hard and frequent stops, these brakes may be for you. The semi-metallic brake pads in these Demco brakes are built to last longer and produce less dust than organic brake pads. They're also bolstered to the brake shoes with rivets, which makes the pads less likely to crumble or warp over the course of their lifetime.
The more miles you put on your trailer, the more your brake pads will wear down. As they lose contact with the drum, stopping distances get longer and longer. To keep your brakes working great, it's important to adjust them pretty routinely. For this job, grab a floor jack and either a brake adjustment tool (sold separately) or just a standard flathead screwdriver.
Jack up your trailer enough to get the wheel(s) off the ground. Remove the adjuster plugs from the backing plate on the brake, and insert the flat end of the tool through the back of the assembly.
Push in on the star gear and lift it up. Keep doing this until the brake pads catch on your brake drum. When you can't spin your wheel by hand anymore, back the gear off by about 10 clicks (push down on the star gear). Does the wheel now spin freely (even if it sounds like the brake pads drag slightly on the drum)? Great! Then you're all done with that one and ready to adjust the rest.
Once you get these assemblies installed, and your lines flushed with fresh fluid, you'll need to break in these brakes. First, find a long stretch of road or a big, empty parking lot. Speed up to about 40 mph and brake to slow to about 20 mph. Repeat this 15-30 times. The goal is to get the brake shoes properly seated into your drum. You'll know you've done that when it feels less jerky (and more consistent) each time you apply the brakes.
Note: The brakes will be very hot after doing this, so after every 10 stops you'll want to wait about 10 minutes to let the brakes cool off before continuing. If you don't, you might cook and crack the pad material.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Jeff: Hello, everybody. This is Jeff at etrailer.com. Today we're going to take a look at the Demco 12" x 2" left-hand and right-hand side galvanized hydraulic drum brake assemblies for up to 7,000-pound axles. Now, these are marine-grade hydraulic drum brake assemblies. They're great for boat trailers. They are designed for use with the surge type trailer brake actuators.
They are sturdy corrosion-resistant steel construction, and you can see they have the galvanized backing plates, which will work well for the marine applications. Also uses stainless steel spring hardware and up right up the top here a nice zinc-plated wheel cylinder.Now, these brake assemblies are a free-backing design, and the reason I say that is because the free-backing design will let you back up without engaging the trailer brakes even if your actuator is activated, and you can tell the free-backing design because one of these shoes looks like a D. You can see this shoe right here. This is a fall away shoe. This fall away brake shoe will only anchor on the drum when the brakes are engaged as the trailer's moving forward.
Because the shoe makes only a slight contact with the drum in reverse, just enough friction is generated so that only a minimal amount of braking occurs when you're in reverse. So, these brakes can be used when you're backing up. It just won't put full brake pressure on. It allows you to back up in reverse.Now, these are manual adjustment brakes, so you can see at the bottom here it has the adjustment wheel that you have to periodically manually adjust them. The mounting flange bolt pattern you can see is a five-bolt design.
Now, the mounting bolts to install these are not included. We do sell those separately on our website and they're listed on this product page as a related product. Configuration, it does include the left-hand driver's side and the right-hand passenger side. Now, when you get new brake assemblies, they'll always have a sticker on it that'll tell you what side is what. This one says R for right.
This would have L for left, but if the sticker wasn't on there and you wanted to know how to tell, the best way to tell what side the brake assembly is for is look at the length of the pad on the shoe.This pad goes from here to here. This pad goes from all the way to here to here. This is a longer pad. This is a shorter pad. The shorter pad is your primary shoe and the primary shoe will always face the front of the trailer. So, that's going to tell you this one will go this way, which is the right-hand passenger side. Same on this one, the pad length. This is the shorter one, so it's going to tell you that it's the left-hand driver's side.Now, again, the axles, these are designed for up to 7,000-pound axles. Now, the size on these are a 12" x 2", and what that means, the 12 inch is the diameter measured from here to here. So, if we put a ruler on it, there's your 12-inch diameter, and the two inch will be the width of the pad. So, there's your two-inch width. Now, these brake assemblies do require a 12-inch brake drum and the wheel size that'll fit on these is 14.5 inch- up to 16-inch diameter wheels. But that should do it for the review on the Demco 12" x 2" left-hand and right-hand side galvanized hydraulic drum brake assemblies for up to 7,000-pound axles.
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