Dual Hydralic front breaks on a tadpole trike. Where to buy manifold connector?

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Nov 10, 2019
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charlotte, nc
I have a 170 lb tadpole cargo trike which carries about 350 to 400 lbs of people/cargo typically I want to upgrade the front breaks to hydraulic so it stops faster.
I can't find a single pull, dual line bicycle hydralic break set.
would these atv/motorcycle ones work? I assume motorcycle break rotors are thicker and these would have to be adjusted? And a new mounting system made?
Would I be better off paying 2x the price for dedicated bicycle hydralic brakes and fabricating my own manifold out of small block of aluminum that is drilleed and tapped? I am afraid the oil will leak out of a home made manifold.
 
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Oct 19, 2012
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Pit type bikes and small quads use brakes 2,3 or 4mm thick. Bigger bikes and quads will certainly use thicker. The 2mm rotors on the smallest pit bikes are usually coupled with mechanical callipers like a bicycle's. If the system is for a 3mm rotor it'll work ok on a 2mm but don't let the pads wear right down as they're already taking up 0.5mm of the slack and you don't want the pistons to pop out.

The problem with adapting a system designed for one brake to activate two is the master cylinder is sized to operate just one slave. Asking it to do two is asking it to move twice the fluid leading to a long pull which may pull to the bar before the pads hit the discs. I'd suggest a system designed for two discs is by far the better bet and try to find one designed for 3mm rotors on the 110 - 125cc ish sized quads. Instead of a splitter you could also run two longer hoses direct from the master with a double banjo bolt if that suits the application better. Either way, with or without a splitter, works the same.
 
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Thanks for the fast reply :) I looked at the ebay ad specs and it shows the breaks are for 4mm thick rotors. So probably too big for a tricycle/bike wheel? woudl putting a piece of aluminum sheet metal under the brake pads to shim them up work? I guess I need to go to the motorcycle junk yard and see first hand how the brakes are constructed.
 
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Shimming ought to work perfectly well though I'd opt for steel shims. I'm not sure aluminium would be butch enough for the job. Some pads have locator studs or springs that fit into the piston. Many (most?) are also simply flat backed and locate like cycle pads via a pin or pins independant of the piston. You'd need to see the back of the pad or at least see an external pinning system to have confidence. Those pictured look to use the two sliding pins for location so will likely have flat backs that will be shimmable. The sliding part of the calliper linked to shows the back of that pad and it's flat (for the purposes of shimming the two indents can be ignored).
 
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just put two rotors per wheel would do the deed. I used an ATV master cylinder and two atv/pit bike brake cylinders. Had hoses fabricated and a T-ee spliter. Brakes work just fine.
 
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they are mounted together in correct rotation (most rotors have an arrow to indicate rotation)
 
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