Replacement brake *band* only? wth.

Wth does my owner's manual call for the replacement of the entire rear wheel assembly when my brake band wears out?? Seems very wasteful, both of my money and of metal and rubber.

Does anybody have a source for replacement bands? Or is there a way to diy bands from non-bike parts?

drill out the rivets and line the band with some 3/16" thick leather leather and some high strength bonding agent and new rivets..........

scooterparts4less.com may be able to have what you need without creating a spending waste and extra parts............

An old leather belt, great idea. Should have thought of that one.

Monster scooter parts has the brake assembly I think will fit for fairly cheap, even though the manual calls for replacing the whole rear wheel. I can go that route if the leather doesn't pan out.

Thank you.

I found an industrial supply source for strips of flexible brake/clutch material. I should be able to rebuild several times for only a few dollars thankfully!!!!1

This way I will not need to destroy one of my leather belts and anyway it should work a lot better than leather..

Ok, so I ordered two friction strips, the semi-metallic one looks like its too heavy duty to work in this light duty application. More on that later if I give it a try.

Soo, for non-metallic brake lining look up 6175k111 on google to find our where to get it for $3 a foot. I cut one piece in half lengthwise with a razor, Should be able to rebuild my 108mm band brake twice for $1.50 a rebuild.. No $25 shipped for the whole brake assembly. Or worse $60 shipped for a rear wheel assembly like the owner's manual would have me do. Pretty outrageous prices for wearing out my brakes on a piece of junk little pit bike.


I'm still undecided on trying to bond the strip to the metal band with an adhesive, or using rivets like the original.. I will post an update with photos when I work on it.. Will be able to hammer the brake lever as hard as we like without worrying about our wallets! In that sense this is a great safety mod.. you KNOW I would be timid on the brakes with $25 a pop brake bands..

Anyway, yhea.

Here is what I'm working with. I have decided to try bonding first. Looks like the old friction strip did not wear out, but broke apart and failed. The black material is the new friction strip.

We bonded it on with some sort of devcon adhesive. If it does not hold, I will rivet on the 2nd refill. Thats going to be a pain because we will need to countersink the rivet heads in to the friction material.

I'll see if I can test it tomorrow or Wednesday. Not bad if it works, two brake refills for $3! You can see in the photo I bent the housing to allow clearance for the wider friction band.. I should just be done with it and weld on a disc caliper bracket!

Is anybody else out there in this forum?

I put it all back together and DOH! I forgot to unplug the battery pack and my boy left the switch turned on. Two weeks of drainage. I guess thats one plus for sla. A brain fart (or two) doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Rather it costs around fifty dollars! Pack was under 20v so I'm not real hopeful the 48v pack is still alive. I'll try a hail mary with my desulfator tonight.

Edit: Worst case I have some brand new zeus sla I can use. This kind of accident makes me NOT want to try the fancier chemistries.. be careful with your packs guys!

For anybody out there in pocketbikeforumland who cares.. My pack took a licking and kept on ticking. An overnight charge and short run to burn off the surface charge.. resulted in a 53.5 resting voltage. This after a two week discharge ending at 19v!

Brakes seem to work well also btw. I think the devcon I used was an inexpensive one about the same as JB weld. Seems to be holding fine for now. We'll see how long the diy brake job holds as we put some miles on. We're saving up for a larger gas bike for my oldest boy to move up to, its nice to have this running again without blowing cash on repair parts.

im listening. glad you got urs back and running. im waiting for a reply on my post which will probably be right below yours when i post this haha!

I'm going to wire in a 6v battery tonight and see how the stock 36v controller likes 54v nominal.. wish me luck!

Thats one good thing about electrics, got a few spare bucks for one little battery.. wire it in and see instant cheap speed improvements.

Well the brake band repair is working great. No problems. So for all you ghetto low budget mofos out there with worn out brakes, go order the friction material for $2.75 plus shipping from mcmaster, xacto to fit, and JB weld that sucka in there.