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Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 10:23 am
by timwilks13
Anyone ever fitted/currently using fiddle brakes? Lad i know has some old fiddle brake levers that he may be throwing this way, just if they're not worth the hassle, or dont do anything i wont bother!?
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 11:47 am
by twiss
It might be rather complicated to fit it to a 410... as you will probably have a single cable transfer box hand brake
If you had a samurai where the handbrake is in the individual rear brake drums you could run one brake lever to each drum... but then I don't think it would pass an MOT
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 11:50 am
by turbo-tom
Fiddle brakes are not road legal.
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 1:21 pm
by Jordi
As above. Not road legal. Bit of a waste of time.
Usually used for trialling to get round tight turns.
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 2:49 pm
by twiss
Now the question is, are they illegal to have on there? Or just illegal to use as a handbrake type thing?
Maybe fiddle brakes on rear axle and 410 prop brake for the handbrake would work...
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 2:52 pm
by Jordi
Illegal full stop to the best of my knowledge.
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:19 pm
by twiss
Right, been looking into this...
It isn't illegal to have fiddle brakes. The problem is that most people reckon a cable handbrake isn't powerful enough to operate fiddles properly, and therefore go with hydraulic fiddle brakes.
Now these are definitely illegal. The requirement for the actual handbrake is that it is a mechanical system, independently operated from the regular brakes, and it must stop both of the wheels at the same time.
This means that fiddle brakes ARE legal, if they are cable operated, and you have a separate handbrake as well which stops the car using one lever. So you could have 1 handbrake and 2 fiddles, BUT they probably wouldn't be very good
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:27 pm
by Jordi
Again, i did some googling and the results were all LR based but.....
Most don't use cables and fit a completely independant second hydraulic system with a 2nd set of caliper.
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:27 pm
by turbo-tom
Id personally have hydrualic over cable. As you can get more hydraulic force then cable ie the brake will lock better etc. One thing with cable is that they will stretch over time etc so hydraulic ftw
Re: Fiddle brakes
Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:33 pm
by twiss
Apart from the fact that you can't have it on a road goer
So cable ftw haha
I reckon a landy would struggle stopping on cables due to weight... whereas an SJ is nice and light...
Ive just redone my rear brakes and can now lock the back wheels at 30mph using the handbrake... think that should be good enough!!!
