safety first! front brake added to coaster brake chopper

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el Diablo Guapo

el Diablo Guapo

Member
Nov 27, 2013
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www.Frankenbikes.com
Stopping!
As i have been dialing in my west coast cho-ped i have become increasingly aware that if something were to fail (chain-wise or otherwise) i would have no effective way of stopping. and the rear is actually not efficient for stopping. front braking a chopper though...

anyway
instead of doing something about this after an incident in an intersection or whatever i decided to assume that this incident will occur, and added a front brake to my bike

i enjoy cutting solutions from other bikes solooking at my pile of "donor" bikes i noticed that some had the brake mechanism mounted on a plate, and that assembly was welded onto the bike.

at its simplest: i cut off that assembly, and mounted it to my fork.

i welded the assembly to my fork, but you could easily drill and mount this with bolts instead -

double pull lever? thats what i ordered i hope i can set it up to perform the way i hope...

( welding on chrome and/or paint, i know, i know... but i did have a scatter fan)
 

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el Diablo Guapo

el Diablo Guapo

Member
Nov 27, 2013
143
4
18
earth
www.Frankenbikes.com
the donor bike said it was made of aluminum - but just that weird shaped silver part - use a magnet if you are unsure - make no mistake the rest of the bike is steel

as i was cutting this up i realized that i might be able to use the rear brake the same way as the horseshoe front brake (on some uglier thing perhaps) if i left the crosspiece intact so i cut it out to try

what, you don't have a pile of donor bikes? well let me tell you, the woman in your life would love nothing more than for you to aquire a bunch of rusty bikes for future cutting...
 

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2door

2door

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Sep 15, 2008
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Good move Guapo.
Many of us stress the importance of having front brakes. They are, in my opinion, not an option but a true necessity. Relying on just the rear brake for a motorized bicycle is simply asking for trouble. You might get away with it for a while but eventually you'll wish you had that all important front stopping power.
Thanks for sharing your method. I hope others will heed the advice.

Tom
 
MEASURE TWICE

MEASURE TWICE

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Jul 13, 2010
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Good going el Diablo Guapo !

I ridded of pedals all together on my OHV registered motorbike. It was a coaster brake bike originally. It is a motorcycle, considered now by DMV / Highway Patrol who inspected it.

Living back East as a kid, I can attest going down a slope of around 10 percent grade on a coaster brake bike, no engine, when the chain fell off. It was on the side walk next to the Long Island Expressway in New York City that long ago during the ice age a glacier carved a bit of a hill.

It was good the parks department kept a lawn by the interchange of the Cross Island Parkway and not too many trees near the bottom of the hill. A lot of extra water had muddied the lawn.

I was scared out of my wits and had just a bit left. I got off the seat and got a low center of gravity, made a wide arc off the side walk onto the lawn and made a concentric turn in to the muck and was totally unscathed. Whew!

My bike originally had both the front and rear V-brakes (original brand) that I scavenged off another bike junker. V-brakes work the best short of disc or drums I think. I have the kind you show now on the front as I also found a fork that had working shocks on an otherwise junker bike.

The rear brakes I made an imitation of the threaded hole and the plate with the three holes for the pin to roughly set the spring tension. The two parts that unscrewed from the junker bike for the shafts that the two sides mount on, transferred onto my MIG welded bosses.

You’ll figure something for the rear brakes as it seems you got ingenuity!

MT

http://motorbicycling.com/showthread.php?t=29678&page=16
 
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