on my 125 Breeze and Raptor 80, i've loosened the front brake adjustment/freeplay so the kids can fully squeeze the lever and take advantage of all their grip strength. BUT, you need to have Arnold Schwarzenegger strength to produce any effective braking. there are linings left on the front brakes, and you have 2 drums compared to the one rear drum. why are they so dang hard for a kid? if i tighten the adjustment and decrease freeplay, it's even harder for them, and less effective.

anyone figure out an effective remedy to make front braking easier for their kids quad?

ONE of the few criticisms i have of the Breeze is NO foot brake for the rear, and the chain drive vs. shaft drive...just cuz i hate all the chain maintenance. I think the 80 is great, except front brakes. I notice there are very few posts here from people with any problems for their Breeze or 80. something folks want to think about when choosing a kids quad.

 

The front brakes on my dinli are the same. You have to back of the adjustment a long ways in order to make it so they can pull the lever in far enough to set the parking brake. Once you do this, there is very little braking power left in the lever. I have been trying to figure out a way to make this better as well. the only thing i have though of is to make the actuator on the drum where the cable attaches longer to increase the leverage that is applied to the brakes. The downside might be that you need a lot of lever movement to get any braking power. Anyone else tried something like this?

 

We've got an LT50 with the same problem. And I keep making it faster. I was wondering how much trouble it would be to convert it to hydraulic braking. Probably easiest on the rear to replace drum with disc, at least in my case. I dont have much room up front for discs. Makey bastardize something off of a small dirt bike?

 

speaking of Dbike, the front brake on my son's XR80 works GREAT. i know it's a lighter machine, but it's also only one brake.

there are extensions you can buy for the hand lever, which might help with the leverage issue. but overall, the whole design just sux. where i notice it is when my son takes too steep a hill and starts to roll back i scream "FRONT BRAKE! FRONT BRAKE!!", and he screams back louder, "I AM, I AM!!!". jamming the rear brake risks an endo flip. it's just downright dangerous, especially when you look at a lot of the other safety features that really don't mean a lot or seem to do much (like a tether after they know how to ride, or speed limiters we remove right away, etc).

 

A friend of mine has a lt50 that has a disc brake (mechanical, cable actuated) that looks like it came off from an old snowmobile. It works well. I looked around a bit and the difficulty is finding a disc that is small enough so that it doesn't hang down so low that it hits everything in it's path. I just bought the rear brake parts off from a lt80 and am going to try to rig that up on my lt50 so that it has a rear foot brake. With the footpower i think you would not need a hydraulic setup for rear brakes.I have seen kits on ebay to convert a blaster rear brake to hydraulic, just would need to find a smaller diameter disc. I think you might be able to use the disk from a barstool racer, gocart, or mini chopper. I figured that finding the disk that was the right diameter, thickness, and inside hole diameter, then figuring out how to attach it was a lot of work, i think if i can add a footbrake then we should be good. Both mine and my buddies are the "old style" lt50s so there is no front brakes.

Since we are talking brakes, i have another issue that i am trying to figure out. I have the parts to put a rear footbrake on my dinli (pedal,brake hose, reservior, and master cylinder). I would like to hook it up and still keep the handbrake for the rear as well. If anyone has a suggestion on how to do this i would love to hear it. Currently the only way i see to do it is with a separate caliper.

 

I had the same problem with a LT80 and the dual cable set up. I replaced the cables and I lube them after every ride. Seems to work well! Make sure you use a good silicone based cable lube. NOT WD40! WD40 will just gunk up and cause the cables to stick. Also make sure the cables are ran correctly with as little bends as possible.

 

We used to handle that issue with aftermarket levers. In many cases it is the geometry that is the fault. Modern levers that have a dogleg to them give you extra leverage that little hands can take advantage of.... it used to turn a four finger pull into a 1 or two finger pull.

This is a problem for small children, and one that responsible parents consider when making their purchase or their kids want to go faster etc. I am confident that Confused is keeping all this in the front of his mind... and looking for a workable solution. Good luck my friend

 

hey DB, did you find an aftermarket lever for your 80? if so, from where/who?

 

To be honest no... but I have seen them around... Luckily, my youngest has bear paws for hands and did not have the problem, but I had the problem in my younger days and it worked great, plus it gave me more feel. I have seen them used on the mini Dirt bikes and I think the design should be the same...

I'll do some research and get back to you.

 

thanks very much. we have a Breeze and the 80. at least the 80 has a footbrake for the rear. the breeze is hand for BOTH, so i'd really like to rig up something better for it.