Terraplane Brakes

[desertrefugee]

Hello Gents (and Ladies if present),

My just-acquired Terraplane (07-100572) has a rotor, but no caliper or master cylinder. I see that the Airheart caliper used is still available. I would imagine that one of the master cylinders offered by Airheart is also what was used. Is it the small one?

Would someone be so kind as to point me to the installation method for the master cylinder? I believe a pedal would need to be obtained (or fashioned) that would mechanically tie into the action of the motorcycle rear brake pedal. I would appreciate seeing info (or images) of that setup as well.

Technical information for this thing is hard to come by and I'm hoping that someone here could throw me a bone on the brake setup. This won't be first on my list of things to do, but I think I would like to have brakes on the car.

Thanks in advance!

Darrell

 

[desertrefugee]

Did some more digging and looked at LOTS of photos. I can see now that the master cylinder is, indeed, the Airheart "small displacement unit". I still need to know if it's upward or downward activated. If I had the pedal, it would probably be obvious. Either way, I won't order until I find a pedal or figure out how it was originally fabricated. That appears to be the long pole in the tent (the pedal).

 

[Mike324]

I posted some 80's Airheart instructions this past summer in the TP forum that I received with my TP from the previous owner. They might help you. I think they are the same instructions provided by the company today. Mike

 

[desertrefugee]

Thanks Mike. Good info. Never too much info for a pretty scarce rascal like this one.

 

[Windbüchse]

Hello Gents (and Ladies if present),

My just-acquired Terraplane (07-100572) has a rotor, but no caliper or master cylinder. I see that the Airheart caliper used is still available. I would imagine that one of the master cylinders offered by Airheart is also what was used. Is it the small one?

Would someone be so kind as to point me to the installation method for the master cylinder? I believe a pedal would need to be obtained (or fashioned) that would mechanically tie into the action of the motorcycle rear brake pedal. I would appreciate seeing info (or images) of that setup as well.

Technical information for this thing is hard to come by and I'm hoping that someone here could throw me a bone on the brake setup. This won't be first on my list of things to do, but I think I would like to have brakes on the car.

Thanks in advance!

Darrell

Greetings Darrell,

Here are a couple pix of the MC and pedal arrangement on my rig.

Hope this helps.

Later, Martin

 

[trikebldr]

The stock brakes are indeed the Airheart 175 calipers and the small master. There is another thread about these on this forum.
If your car mounts pretty much as intended, you could get by with all the stock components for the pedal and master mounting. But, I have found very few installations that place the pedal exactly where it needs to be. Pedal placement is a very personal thing and much has been discussed about using sidecar brakes and how to hook them up, on other forums, namely The Sidecarist. Personally, I like the sidecar's pedal next to the bike's rear brake pedal so I can simply slide my foot over to the right about an inch to cover both and use a side-rocking method to modulate both. That takes a little practice to get used to, but works pretty well for me. To place the car's pedal exactly where I needed it I had to make up all new mounting brackets. Stock brackets give just so much adjustment and it wasn't enough to fit my bike's needs. When I get all the parts back from the powdercoater I will try to post some pics.
The last thing to do then is to have a custom length hose made up to connect the master to the caliper.

 

[desertrefugee]

Thank you Martin and TB. Your posts (and photos) are like gold to me. As I noted, info is scarce on these excellent sidecars. It's unfortunate that the company making them didn't survive after Craig Vetter sold off rights to this design.

Thanks again!