Is there anyway to shorten the throw on steering brakes? I have about 4” of travel I would like to get it down to 1”.

Thanks, Brad

Brad do you have a residual check valve at your master cyl ? if not put a 2 pounder there,,should make a diff

I forgot to say what I have. CNC pedals, 2lb residual valve, CNC dual upright cutters, Wilwood 4 piston calipers.

I was thinking about adjusting the plunger rods on the cutters but want to make sure that will do it because I have to remove the seats to get to them.

Brad the rod adjustment is for fine tuning the locating of the handles/peddles not the pistons. To do what you want to do you need to limit the movement of the handles going back with stops and then adjust the rods moving the pistons in. Are you sure your brakes don't need bled??

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Also, if you take every bit of the slack out with those rods, the brakes tend to lock up on you sometimes and you gotta wiggle the handles to unlock. (At least single handles will, dont know if duals do this). Could be a bad situation during a climb!! I nearly rolled twice from this. Like Mike mentioned, did you power bleed them? They can feel great on your foot pedal and still need a little more bleeding.

Larry

I spent 1hr last night trying to bleed them with one of those hand vacuum bleeders. The brake pedal feels good but the cutters just move to far. I might be going to plumberbills today I’ll see if I can borrow his pressure bleeder and see if that solves the problem.

I have a residual pressure valve and still have no idea how they work. I would assume it uses a spring to hold pressure. I wonder if the spring can wear out or if the valves themselves can fail. I had a single handle in my last buggy and the throw was extremely short without the residual valve. I bet the throw was less than 1.5".

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Maybe a set with a bigger bore size, like a 7/8 bore. Those calipers need more volume of fluid than a smaller set.

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"YOU CAN MAKE THINGS HAPPEN, WATCH THINGS HAPPEN OR WONDER WHAT THE F$$K HAPPEND...WE'RE MAKING THINGS HAPPEN" The strong words of Captain Phil! Rest in peice!

Brad Karens are 7/8 M/C ---3/4 T/B---- Wilwood 4-P Cal
turn brakes only move a inch or so .I think you have air still

i have a power bleeder if you need to use it brad.

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Thanks guys, I borrowed plumberbills power bleeder and it’s the best my brakes ever felt. I got the steering brakes down to about 2” of throw but the driver side moves a little further than the passenger side.

I tried to make a power bleeder last year but it just pumped in more air than fluid. It is basically the same as Bills so I think the little pick up straw in the sprayer has a crack in it causing all the air to go in.

After sitting all night I tested the cutters again and they were back to the long travel. I bled the entire system and they were bad again after 2hrs. I pulled the 2lb residual valve off and I could blow through it both directions easily so I think it is bad. I put a 10lb residual valve in and the break pedal and the left cutter is great but the right cutter moves about 2” further than the left. After further inspection it looks like the right rubber line is wet so I am going to replace it with stainless flex lines and hopefully that will fix it.

Is a 10lb residual valve to much for 4 piston Wilwood’s?

Brad did you try blowing compressed air through that 2lb valve both ways? 2 psi is a bunch to do with your lungs.
10 lb might hang your brakes up some, don't think it will hurt anything.
Isn't there a check valve of some sort in the cutters to frevent feed back to the foot pedal?
If there is that could be messed up???

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Mike,
No I didn’t try compressed air. But I just took it apart and think I found out the problem. The little rubber valve with the spring in it is staying open. I looks like the spring goes in to far not allowing it to close. If you look closely at the picture you can see where the spring is going in to far into the rubber valve allowing the valve to stay open. If I pull the spring out and reassemble it I can’t blow through it. I think with all the vibrations the spring works its way up into the valve. I might try putting a small washer in there and see if it works that way if you think a 10lb is too much.

As far as the cutters having a flow back valve I haven’t seen any with it. I thought that’s what the purpose of the residual valve was?

This 10 psi residual valve is for drum brakes and the 2 psi is for disc brakes, I was going to run a set, but I do not need them, they are to help keep your caliper pads pressurize at 2 psi to where it is already traveled and will be ready to stop when needed resulting in a shorter throw brake pedal and/or steering brake. I used a MAC power bleeder on mine, when finished, I manually bled the rest, pump the pedal, hold the pedal, crack the bleeder loose, wait til the pedl goes to the floor, then pull on the handle that goes to this brake to the max travel allowed, tighten bleeder screw back up, repeat. The results are that the brakes are very stiff, just fairly push it with your foot and man they will stop! I only have about 1.5" travel on my single-handle steering brake.

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The main reason I use residual pressure valve is because my cutter brakes and my rear wheel brake calabers are higher than my mastercylinder. And when you let it sit, the fluid will flow back to the mastercylinder and overflow the mastercylinder. Sometimes it might take a couple of hours, sometimes it might be overnight. this might be where you'r loosing your travel, your fluid is just going back to your mastercylinder.

Yea thats why I had the 2lb valve in there but I think it's bad. I am going to try running the 10lb and see what happens.