Old School Steering Brakes

Now for those of us who have been around Buggy Fun for many
many years, we are aware of the use of Steering Brakes. Most of us
cut our teeth on doing fancy turns and runs in the dirt with Steering
Brakes which offered us a world of differance in performance.

I had almost given up on even finding original steering brakes when I found a NOS set of brakes on E
Bay and won the bidding! Follow along as I show my younger buggy friends how it was done in the
old days. OLD SCHOOL BABY!

You will need a complete emergency brake system. I
purchased a new one to show the modifications needed
to do in order to retro fit the old school steering brake
system. It is not that hard, it just takes a few steps.

The picture at the left you see the new parking brake
ket. All the pieces are there but some them are NOT
going to be used. I chose new, it does not need to be
cleaned and I hate working on dirty used parts.

The picture at the right is the NOS steering Brake kit
as it arrived. You are going to need more washers
and a Bolt that will fit in the holes in the steering
brake arms. Make sure it is long enough to hold not
only the aarms but the emergency brake handle as
well as all the washers. I also got a self locking nut
so it will not come apart doing use.

The first step in modifications is to make a very small
hole into the claw of the kit. This is so I can use a
piece of flower wire to help hold it onto the push rod.
When the push rod is assembled into the emergency
Brake handle the wire keeps the claw from falling
upside down should your brakes need adjusting.
Nothing worse than haveing to take the whol thig
apart to try and get the claw to stay put. Once I put the
spring onto the push rod, I put the wire over the push
rod and insert the whole thing into the emergency
handle. I then install the black button. Now put a
small bolt through the handle with some small
washers on each side and a locking nut. Now the claw
will never come loose and the wire keeps it from
falling from the push rod.

Now turning the handle over you need to modify the
top two loops that the cable go through. This done so
that you can have individual movement of the
steering brake arms and yet the emegency brake
handle with lift both steering brakes arms when you
set the emegency brake when parking. carefully trim
the tops of the loops. Make sure they are even to
provide a good look when the whole thing is installed
into your buggy.