[captaingamez]

Well i was messing about in my garage and i stumbled on some very small hydraulic cylinders. I came up with an idea to build a hydraulic brake system for my rear drum brakes. Im not sure if it has been done before, but i want to know what anyone thinks of the idea.

 

[cafecb200]

I'm sure its been done before but I've never seen it. I would assume that you want to use two cylinders, one pushed by the foot and the other pulling the brake arm. If they are double acting cylinders it wouldn't be that hard to hook up either. It sounds good just make sure they have enough stoke pull the brake far enough.

 

[Geeto67]

Not to be the guy who pisses on your cheese but....

From a practical standpoint wouldn't it make sense to just convert to disc brake? I mean it sounds like you are trying to add weight to your braking system in order to replace the cable or linkage system which already works fairly well to start. The only thing you are going to get out of this is probably a little more clamping power (if you can't lock your drum now then you may need to service it - more clamping power means it will lock earlier) and you don't have to worry about cable maintence. Where as with disc brakes you are actually shaving weight off the bike and getting hydro brakes at the same time.

Old harley aftermarket used to have a setup all the guys refer to as "juice brakes" which were hydro drums. They were not really better than stock but they looked cool. When disc brakes became more common those became the way to go (even taking over the moniker juice brakes).

I imagine you probably want to study old american cars for the design, since they all had hydro drums until....well some still come with hyrdo drums now (in the rear). You could probably even use small automotive wheel cylinders to actuate your rear drum and a disc brake master cylinder to pump the fluid.

But if it were me I would shitcan the "wow" factor bullshit and put the best disc brake on the back that I can find.

 

[captaingamez]

well my rear brake doesnt clamp real well with the rearsets i installed, since their designed for hydraulic brakes. i already drew up the blueprints to mill the parts, it shouldnt take very long, and if they dont work, then no big deal.

 

[Anythingillegal]

Geeto your the guy who puts things into perspective.

captain, if your really trying to stop sooner go disc. You'd be suprised to find a machine shop close to you that would be more than happy to help you out with any billet parts you need. Alot of the guys that work in those shops do repetative shit and like doing creative one off stuff especially when it envolves motorcycles.

Start with wheel from a bike that has the dia. and width that you would like (with a disc brake) then just make it work. I've turned down rotors to the dia. I needed to fit in the caliper that I wanted or just had laying around.

Do what makes you happy! Good luck<img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>

If you build it they will ride - ill.