Well, I have a small 7 year old riding one of the SunL ATVs. Great quad for the money, and serves us well. But, our little guy just can't reach the brake well enough, and it seems dangerous when we are around alot of people. I tried bending the brake handle and found out its only pot metal. Snapped like a twig. Ordered another one from Raceway, for the price of $25.00. Seems high, since my big 4 dealers only charge around $10 for an aluminum one. Checked those out, and none had the hydraulic features to match the SunL.

Got the idea to modify the old one before throwing it out, to see what could be done. I did all of this in my garage, and not my machine shop. So you ugys should be able to do this very easy. First, use a grinder with a cut-of wheel to slice the handle like shown. Then, take about 20 degrees off the other side. Then, tap a #10-32 screw hole in both sides of the handle. I used a steel allen scrwe to bolt them together. If it bottom out before lining up, just sand a little off one side, and re-test. Red loctite them together and you can now have a little kid riding this kids quad safely.

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I'll have to order another one and do this for real now. And I'll continue to search for a better, cheaper way.

 

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Looks good....


As another improvement suggestion, you may want to make another modified hand lever (as a template), take it to a few Technical Colleges and ask them can use this template to create a "solid steel" lever. I'm sure many students in the Machine Shop courses are looking for a custom "duplication" mini-project like this.



I don't like the hand lever brake systems either. To me, all minis should have mandatory foot brakes. If wondering, I created my own foot brake system. It's cable based for our '03 Pred-90. Installing a foot brake with working brake switch was one of the best mods we did to our Pred-90. I'd do it again - without hesitation. For our Hydraulic based system, I think K-Fab makes a great foot brake system. For pictures, surf: http://www.kfabproducts.com/prodpics...pedal_assy.jpg


Hope these other "braking improvement" ideas help as well...

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