adding front brakes to a 50's / 60's Murry bike

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Does that bolt onto a fender mount screw. A 1" star nut could be used if there's no fender attaching system
I recall that my Murray built fork had a very "lightweight" fender mount tab of sheet metal, with a hole for a small sheetmetal-screw (about #8-32 or a 4mm size), part of the reason (besides 2.125" tires) that I didn't use the fenders.
The forks were a tight fit, height-wise, for 26 x 2.125" tires.
 
Last edited:
Does that bolt onto a fender mount screw? A 1" star nut could be used if there's no fender attaching system.

A vice, hammer, plate and grinder, these could be made for any fork. This one kinda locks into the fork legs which adds a lot of stability.

Where the heck did you find it. Very cool part.

Yep, bolts on where the fender goes. Someone posted that photo on Facebook and I thought it was really a great idea. I'd been wanting to ad a front brake to my '65 for a while. I posted wanted ads on CABE, a Schwinn forum and here. I got a response from a guy who used to own a bike shop. It's a NOS Schwinn part.
 
Thanks for all the advice guy's (sorry it's taken a while to post again but work has been manic)

I've certainly gotten some ideas now. I think for the clean lines and look I might go with getting the Sturmey Archer hubs once I source some other 26" wheels and the forks .

I'll le you know how it all goes.
 
Here's an idea that's been done before--coaster brake mounted up front, activated by a cable, short length of chain, and a return spring. I'm betting that would satisfy the letter of the law, if not the spirit.
 
100_3432.jpg
 
Here's an idea that's been done before--coaster brake mounted up front, activated by a cable, short length of chain, and a return spring. I'm betting that would satisfy the letter of the law, if not the spirit.

I´ve always been tempted to do something like this, but I haven´t gotten around to it yer. From what I have seen, and what i know about coasters, it´s tough to set it up with a regular lever and cables, b/c youĺl need to move a lot of cable/chain to engage the brake. A lot of folks go with a big ol´ lever and, from what i´ve seen online, full-chain. Using a smaller sprocket will reduce the amount of pull you need, but you get better leverage and braking with a big sprocket.


I love that set-up!
 
True...a coaster does demand an unusually long pull to activate. One possible way to address this might be through the use of a "Travel Agent." This is a nifty little device designed to permit the use of V-brake arms with dropbar/canti levers--it effectively doubles the pull of any cable it's installed on.

travelagent.jpg
 
I remember the Travel Agent; that was a pretty cool aftermarket kludge but it seems like, ultimately, the world figured out that getting the right brake levers is cheap, and the feel is that much better. I´m thinking that the difference in terms of the amount of cable pulled for a canti/sidepull caliper (¨shortpull¨) versus a linear-pull/¨v¨-brake (¨longpull¨) is pretty small, compared to how much cable you´d need to move to actuate a coaster with any authority.

As I´d mentioned earlier, a smaller sprocket would help, and there is a good amount of variation between different models of coaster hubs, but think about how much you need to back-padal on a standard rear-mounted, foot-actuated coaster. Obviously, the pedals are at the end of the cranks, so that exaggerates the distance, but i´m talking in terms of how much chain is moving. To go from full-neutral (coasting) to full-brake (skidding) takes quite a few links´ worth of movement. I think it´s more realistic to hook up something non-bike to use as a lever, so you can really crank-up the total pull ratio and leverage crank-factor I think i recall seeing a buld here on RRB where they used hardware from a gate, but I´d be tempted to drill out and rig up a pr-24 or something like that, for both the BA factor and the fact that you could pick a fulcrum to really maximize the leverage....
 
I think that you could set it up so that the brake was on the verge of engaging at rest so as to lessen the distance of pull. It would have to be a Bendix type, with a New Departure type drag would be a major issue, and a Morrow has a lot of travel within the braking action, so drag would be an issue there as well.
 
I think that you could set it up so that the brake was on the verge of engaging at rest so as to lessen the distance of pull. It would have to be a Bendix type, with a New Departure type drag would be a major issue, and a Morrow has a lot of travel within the braking action, so drag would be an issue there as well.

That might help, but even if you could set it up close enough for a conventional brake lever´s pull to engage the brake effectively, you can bet it would be draggy as can be.
 
Back
Top