Video Transcript for An In-Depth Look at the Dexter Hydraulic Brake Actuator

Today we are going to take a look at the Titan adjustable channel, hydraulic drum brake actuator with the reverse lockout and a 20,000 pound gross towing weight capacity. Now this hydraulic actuator will activate your trailer 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 toward the rear of your vehicle. So with the surge brake system, this actuator right here is triggered as your trailer moves forward once your tow vehicle starts to slow down. So when this happened, this actuator will contract slides inside here applies force to the master cylinder back here, and then this in turn supplies the hydraulic pressure to engage your trailer brakes. This one is a unique role we designed.

There's two rollers up here, and two right down here, this will help reduce resistance during the telescoping to create a nice straight line movement.If you notice on the end of each roller, they have these grease cert fittings, and that'll allow you to lubricate the rollers very easily with a grease gun. You just put it on the end and pump grease in there. This is a sturdy, durable steel construction, resists bending in any jackknife situations. Now this actuator does include an electric solenoid back here, and that's your electric reverse lockout feature. This'll let you back up without actuating your trailer brakes.

Basically what happens is this electric reverse lockout is automatically activated when you shift your tow vehicle into reverse. So there's two wires here. These wires need to wire into your trailer connector. So when you plug in your trailer connected to your tow vehicle, it can detect when you're in reverse. So when your vehicle goes into reverse, the solenoid will ensure that the hydraulic actuator does not activate your trailer brakes, thus, allowing you to back up your vehicle.Now to use this feature, you do have to have a five-way flat six way round or a seven way trailer connector to hook it up.

If you notice the shield back here, it's a nice built-in shield. That'll protect the solenoid valve from the elements and from any damage. At the front here, it has this offset adjustable channel. It has five different mounting positions for your coupler. One, two, three, four, and five.

Now the coupler that bolts in here is sold separately on our website. And if you notice this channel has a built-in drop. So it's great for tall trailers and that's because of this adjustable channels position so that the mounted coupler in here can sit below the actuator tube, allowing for a greater drop than a standard center mounted channel. So as a result, you can line up your tall trailer with your tow vehicle set to a nice level set up just to give you an idea on the channel size, the height of it is right at 12 inches, the inside width where your coupler will mount into is going to be three inches.And the distance between the mounting holes center to center is right at two inches. This actuator does have a nice prime finish on the outer casing. The inner slide portion is painted. Now this does include this breakaway kit. This chain right here, you can see that stuck to this lever. This will hook onto your tow vehicle. So what this does is in case your trailer gets disconnected from your tow vehicle, this chain will be hooked to the tow vehicle. It will pull this lever, which will activate the master cylinder to apply the brakes in a runaway situation. So let's breakaway kit has a nice safety feature to have. This is a weld on installation. A few specs on this is for trailers with drum brakes, gross towing weight capacity is 20,000 pounds. Maximum tongue weight capacity is 2000 pounds, and this is designed to fit onto a straight three inch wide trailer tongue. But that should do it for the review on the Titan adjustable channel hydraulic drum brake actuator with reverse lockout and a 20,000 pound gross towing weight capacity..