Author Topic: brake calipers - does it matter where the disc is grabbed?  (Read 98 times)

synthpunk

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Ive been working on this very conundrum. It’s a saga worthy of a thread on its own, but since you’ve already started one, I’ll join in..

The long and short of it is that I’ve made a very curvy, strong and attractive unibody cyclekart from wood. I did the wood bits first because that’s my happy place, and I sort of assumed by the time brakes became relevant I’d be far enough along the metalwork and mechanics learning curves to work it out, and simply weld a suitable bracket on somewhere, somewhen, somehow.

That time it appears is now. The problem I have is that everything’s made of wood, so it’s really hard to weld things on to. And there are no parallels or right angles to take a datum off, so it’s difficult to think of a way to get the calliper parallel to the disc anyways…

This led me to the thought that I needed to weld up some sort of subchassis that holds the engine, transmission, axle and brakes together in a hopefully square, not too heavy, easily removable unit…

Which in turn has led me to several conclusions, via cutting up lots of metal, various major backtracking moments and a few moments of clarity to several more refined conclusions-

1- build a sort of subchassis that bolts in the back and holds everything in place

2- get slightly sidetracked, and think of a way to equip said subchassis that so it has the ability to add rear suspension, in some way.. preferably that doesn’t weigh much. Probably using rubber…. Because I like it.

3- get completely sidetracked, end up coming up with a way of making a ‘floating calliper mount’ sort of affair that holds the calliper in perfect alignment at all times, is totally adjustable, and in effect even would allow me to use it in my original, ‘no weld’ scheme of lightweight bolted aluminium engine mounting, thus negating the need to even bother with the inevitable extra weight penalty of either options 1 or 2….. although suspension to make up for the total lack of twist and flex in my chassis does sound good…

So the caddy for options 1 and 2 was already halfway built as it goes, before I came up with option 3 whilst thinking in the shower on Sunday morning, so I think I’m going to end up trying all 3.

Tomorrow or Thursday after the postie has been I’ll post some pics of the brake calliper arrangement. It’s mostly made of Righettit parts, so not the cheapest option but still a fraction of the price of a Kelgate floating brake system for Pro karts.

Pics to come… cheers!
Rich