How good are stock Spiderbox brakes?
 

Just wondering how good the stock Spiderbox brakes are? Can the back tires be locked up? Do you have a solid feeling brake pedal or is it kind of spongy? The brakes on mine are not what I would want them to be. It will slow you down, but in no way can you slide the tires. Is this normal? This is the last area that needs addressing before I can sell it, but I don't want to spend a lot of time kicking a dead horse, if the design is not good to start with.

I have scuffed up the disc and pads and left the pads over night in ground up kitty litter to draw out any chemicals. However, I don't like the feel of the pedal, but I don't know if this means there is still air in the line or if it just the linkage flexing.

Interesting you're bringing this up, my brakes are terrible too! The pads are practically RUBBING the disk, so if anything that would slow me down? My pedal is also pretty spongy as well. Looks like we're in the same boat...together...alone... *heavy breathing*
:biggrin:

You know, mine was super soft as well. It would slow down and hold, but felt like crap, negative on locking the axle. I have heard some bleeding issues with the master, but never got that far. Try pinching off the hose near the master and see if changes anything. I think you yourself mentioned the design issue with trapping air near the banjo fitting. Might try either taking it off and bleeding on different orientations, or pressure bleeding from the caliper bleeder. Post back here any results. I am planning to reuse the stock master and caliper with a braided flex hose mounted all on the swing arm with a cable pulling a z-bar from the pedal. I really hated the stock rod design and how it mounted behind the seats.

In theory and all things being equal, the design does have some decent qualities. The main one is that it uses a shorter brake hose. I've never liked the idea of having a flexible brake hose that goes from the front of the buggy all the way to the back. That is just too much line that can have the ability to swell under pressure and give you a poor pedal. Of course if you have deep pockets you can have custom steel braided hoses made that would eliminate this. So the shorter hose on the Yerf "should" give you a better pedal, that is if the linkage doesn't flex like a wet noodle.

Oh well, it looks like I will try and fab up some type of pressure bleeder and report back.

I thought the same thing about the short hose, and you are right about lengths of braided line over around 5 foot. I had originally decided to mount the master to the pedal, but I found a simpler and cheaper way. X-bird is pushing two calipers with a stock yerf master, so I would assume you/we should be able to get ours to stop properly.

I'm actually using a 5/8ths bore master i sourced from a company that caters to golf cart modders. the 1/2 wasn't a good match for the pair of calipers i have. I did run a stock yerf setup when i had the 150 and swingarm on it. put that together from new yerf parts and it would lock up the back end just about instantly with a hard foot on it -- had a great pedal feel and modulation. i did the same setup with my daughters little cart, and it too has a great pedal and ability to lock them up.

I think you guys need to bleed your systems.

My daughter's yerf used to lock the rear wheels when hitting the brakes, but the last time out with the buggy the brakes failed and do nothing now. :eek: I haven't really had the time to mess with it much but was unable to get anything when I tried bleeding them. :banghead:

My daughters will lock the axle on pavement and certainly dirt. I replaced the M/C and gave it a good bleeding. Works great, so well that I decided not to worry about adding front brakes.

livestock syringe .... 1.20 at the farm bureau ... about 6 foot of clear hose ... hose on the caliper bleeder going way up high into a bottle with some fluid in the bottom, syringe with a load of fluid and some sort of tip into the reservoir. reverse bleed, works fast, have at it ...))))

I prefer reverse bleeding. I use to do all my atv's and dirtbikes that way. That way I could see air bubbling in reservoir.

I have never had an issue pressure bleeding the conventional method on bikes, cars, trucks, and so on. On bikes though, I will crack every banjo loose in that circuit starting at the master and move further away. I have had issues bleeding hydro clutches on street bikes, but I just used the vacuum bleeder attachment for my hand vacuum pump.