Give me a brake

[953 nut 60,968]

My A-60 Electric Wheel Horse has a chain final drive from the transmission to the differential. The master link on the chain gave out so I had my wife tow me to the shop. Since the brakes are on the transmission I had no brakes which got me to thinking. I have a rather steep driveway up to the house and if the chain had let loose there it would be a coaster ride with no way of stopping other than hitting a tree.            Not a desirable alternative. I looked the situation over and decided to add a disc brake to the rear axle. Took a little bit of measuring and shade tree engineering but the outcome was well worth it. The disc is much better than the brakes mounted to the Peerless Transmission. 

[SylvanLakeWH 28,950]

Very cool!

 

How about a bit of detail on how you did it?

 

Go cart disc brake?

 

Whats the pillow block for on the left?

[lynnmor 7,939]

I guess there is a differential at the chain end which will give one wheel braking and possibly some unpredictable action.  Not trying to rain on your parade, just do some slow speed panic stops on various surfaces to see how it behaves.

[Achto 29,542]

Excellent addition !!! 

[8ntruck 8,005]

"Not a desirable situation" @953 nut says.  

 

No kidding!  Last spring I found myself on my 8n in neutral, rolling backwards down hill into the puckerbrush in my woods in Ky.  Yes, it was standing on my oil soaked brakes.  They slowed me down enough that it was only a slow motion scary ride.  Fortunately, i came to a semi gentle stop.

Edited 7 hours ago by 8ntruck

[Handy Don 14,263]

I am pleased that since I replaced the original WH “fabric” brake material with @rmaynard’s composite material, the pitiful braking has become barely adequate! 😀

[ri702bill 9,668]

A nice addition indeed. How is it actuated - cable, rod , what ever? Stock brake pedal??

Since there is no apparent chain enclosure, does the chain get full of dirt & clippings??

That disc would be a perfect candidate to be split to allow assembly and removal withour pulling the axle. Has to do that with face & box cams years ago on a fully manual machine with a center line shaft.

[953 nut 60,968]

10 hours ago, lynnmor said:

I guess there is a differential at the chain end which will give one wheel braking and possibly some unpredictable action.  Not trying to rain on your parade, just do some slow speed panic stops on various surfaces to see how it behaves.

If the traction at each tire is equal the breaking action will also be applied to both wheels through the differential. With the transaxles on Wheel Horses the tire with the least traction receives the most stopping power. I already did the panic stop test and both rear wheels grabbed.

10 hours ago, SylvanLakeWH said:

How about a bit of detail on how you did it?

The entire rear end was removed for this modification. Once the axle was out of the carrier I was able to slide the disc onto the axle and position it where I wanted it, the disc has a one inch hole and the axle is 3/4" so a steel bushing was needed and since I couldn't use a key to the shaft I drilled a shallow hole in the axle where the set screw goes in to obtain a good contact. Also used red Loctite on the set screw. A bracket was fabricated to secure the brake caliper mount to the middle axle support and then it was just a matter of connecting the linkage. The rod going to the brakes on the Peerless transmission pushes back so a pivoting lever had to be used to pull the caliper's rod but that just took a bit of time and scrap metal that I already had in my junk storage.

Go cart disc brake?

Yes

Whats the pillow block for on the left?

The axle bearing on that end was a bit noisy so I replaced it. 

 

[JoeM 8,550]

I can see you know sliding under Squonk's tent on a drift! It's not how you drive it is how you arrive! 

 

I like it, nice job.