Terraplane brake pedal on GL1100

[TexasBulldogger]

Can I ask for pictures of brake pedals on Terraplane set ups? I had the Vetter (go-cart) brake system on my first car back in the 80's and remember plenty of room for my feet on floorboards. As well as touching either or both of the pedals. I can't for the life of me figure out what's different about this current set up. There hardly seems like enough room for the pedal alone.

My current T/P came with the original master/slave and pedal bracket. I removed whole system after I poured dust out of the slave!

Were there optional lengths of the two lower mounts? Mine came with Teflon 1 1/2" spacers and it still feels closer than my old rig. There's a 30+ year gap and no old pictures from down there!! I only have my ball joints out about an inch. Don't remember how long they are. Expect I could gain a couple of inches and still enough bolt in-thread.

 

[turbodog]

I'm not using the Terraplane brake. This uses a Honda rear brake master and CBR1100xx caliper. I think the pylons were for a Goldwing.

 

[TexasBulldogger]

The side by side is what I remember on my old one, but that just won't work with my floorboards. Pretty sure my memory's not that bad and I did have floorboards on my old rig. Must have stopped thinking about over the winter long enough to look at it differently today. Realized TP brake arm can bolt on the outboard side of the TP factory bracket and can run along under left frame tube with push pad sticking out in corner of car and front pilon. That will let me stomp heal and toe on both pedals for full hard straight stops. And just toe the side brake for righties. Will mock up bracket this weekend when I have more time. Will be buying a whole new brake system soon. Plenty online for go-cart/ATVs.

Any other ideas out there? Show me your brakes!!!

 

[TexasBulldogger]

Three runs to hardware store and success. Thanks Amazon for master cylinder overnight delivery. Repurposed an unknown bracket. Could have been from a heal/toe shifter mount. Moved all components to outside of brackets under car frame. I cleaned up and reused the original TP Airheart disc cylinder.

Don't remember how much brake wants to ride up around the swing arm. Lifts car and leans bike away from turn. Kind of defeats braking the car to swing the bike around. Maybe better in high speed turns. Will take some getting used to. I have the shock on stiffest setting. Maybe softer will keep the car down. Plenty of weight in car. Over 100 lbs of gear and water ballast, plus 60 pound dog.

 

[turbodog]

Glad you got it sorted out.

 

[TexasBulldogger]

Not too many talkers here. But just realized it had been couple of years when I was thinking about linking front brake to car. How did your brake mod turn out?

 

[turbodog]

Not to my satisfaction, but not so bad I tore it out
I just have too much caliper piston area on the bike front brake compared to the caliper piston area on the sidecar brake.
The solution is to go from 4-pot to 2-pot calipers on the bike. The GSXR calipers and YZF750 rotors are too much brake for that skinny 19 inch bias tire anyway. I can easily lock it up with a 2 finger pull on the lever. The same calipers and slightly bigger rotors on my 920 turbo bike (with modern sportbike wheels and tires) take a full hand squeeze to get a lock.

I am planning on converting the tug to a leading link front suspension. My plan is to fix the brakes at that time. Until then, assisting a stop with the sidecar brake pedal works fine, but requires practice to do it smoothly without causing the rig to veer. I am concerned that my wife mostly just ignores the car brake. But, she is a cautious driver, so not as likely as me to get into trouble due to the extra braking distance.

 

[TexasBulldogger]

I thought metering would be a problem. I envisioned either by restriction valve or pot size change.

After riding my rig without a brake for almost two years, quick stop muscle memory still has me on just the rear pedal and hand lever. Right now I'm all over the road in three brake stops trying to find that sweet spot between toe pressure on car and heel on rear. Not good for hard stops!! I think all I will use is a light touch on the side brake to bring the rig through right turns at speed. And let the bike's brakes do all the hard work in straight stops.

Now that I have the car brake back, don't think I would want front wheel and car combined. How does that set up work in turns? Wouldn't want any car brake in left hand turns?

 

[turbodog]

I have a proportioning valve in-line with the sidecar brake (thinking I could adjust it according to how much weight is in the sidecar), but it is wide open. One solution would be to move the proportioning valve to the Bike's front brake line (thus restricting pressure to the bike brake in comparison to sidecar brake pressure). That would likely work, and the bike brake would actually benefit from a little taming down. But, more parts means more opportunities for a failure... and a failure of the bike's front brake ranks really high on the list of things I don't want to happen.

 

[turbodog]

I agree that SC brake in a left turn is undesirable. But, my style (and training to wife) is not to be braking hard in turns. Get the braking done, THEN turn. A little trail braking (including the SC brake) is inevitable, though. The SC brake will not make much difference in that scenario, I suspect. I'll know when I actually have it working!