Stupid question time.

[stevo as b4]

What would be people's thoughts on welding a brake caliper carrier made from steel?

I want a new carrier for a single piston sliding caliper, and it needs to have 15mm greater pcd from the mounting holes to the fork legs to the centre of the sliding pins.

Im not interested in ugly adapter brackets, so it needs to be a new carrier if there's a company willing to make it, or I cut off the mounting lug part and have a piece of steel welded to the carrier to re-drill in the correct place.

Would welding 6mm thick steel approx distort the carrier?

I'm not in a position to use a different carrier from another bike, as I don't know of any Kawasaki's that use a 260mm diameter brake disc with the same caliper and fork leg mounting hole dimensions.

Who would BCF'ers use to do a job like this?

[MCN]

If you weld a support for a brake or main frame it will have to be tested.
And apart from weld and test it should really be 'engineered' where an informed person works out the loads the part will support.
It's not simply weld it where it touches.

It is do-able any way you like though I would want something like this done correctly.

😊

There is no reason for distortion when welding. Distortion is caused by improper welding technique.
No control of heat effect.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[stevo as b4]

I know some good local firms that are expert welders in aluminium, steel, even castings and in both automotive and commercial structure fabrication. One firm has always done work for me small little jobs for cash in hand.

I don't know anyone locally who can machine/CNC mill a new carrier for me in the dimensions I want. I can do an accurate drawing and even make a dummy part in mdf to the correct dimensions, but I can't do the last step.

I don't have a milling machine and haven't done any CNC programming for nearly 20years. All I really want is a recommendation by people that have had or made custom parts of who to go to with this part request.

Who does BCF use for such parts?

[-]

Is there not a suitable alternative caliper which would fit the existing mounts?

Are you sure? What model of Kawasaki?
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[stevo as b4]

To be honest with you that's an option I hadn't really looked into. The bike is one of my KMX's, and there is a chance that one of the myriad of MX bikes might have a caliper that will bolt directly or its carrier rather to the KMX fork leg mounts.


Is there an easy way or a catalogue of part numbers I can research to find a caliper with the right centre distance between the mountings?

It wouldn't matter if it's a single, twin or four piston caliper as long as it will bolt up without an adapter bracket and run a 260mm brake disc. The disc is the one constant I can't really change as I've had it custom made for my hub.

If a new or used caliper and a rebuild kit is cheaper than a custom carrier for the OEM caliper then I'm all for it.

[stevo as b4]

As for the welded carrier idea, I don't want to go full bodyguard and bodge the bike to oblivion, but I just think I'd trust a good weld (not by me) to modify the carrier.

Its seen as very lethal/dangerous or idiotic in the world of brake repairs and I do get that and why, but I'm not trying to stop a school bus full of kids, it's a little learner bike that isn't ridden much and thus isn't doing rush hour commutes or constantly rapidly going from 100-40mph on track days etc.

[MCN]

[ThatDippyTwat]

It's milling a small steel outline, it's not Aerospace. Any small manual machine shop should be able to knock that out in an hour or so.

I can recommend some exceedingly good people if you want, but their prices will, at a guess, make your eyes water. We use them for machining up one-off's as it's not worth it to do it in our machine shops that run production stuff 24/7.
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'98 VFR800 (touring) - '12 VFR800 Crosrunner (Commuting) - '01 KDX220 (Big Green Antisocial Machine)

[MCN]

It's not aerospace but it still should be done properly.

Watering eyes suggests engineered.
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[ThatDippyTwat]

[c_dug]

I'd do it myself, but I have access to a bridgeport and am pretty capable with it.

The issue you'll have is that small machine shops and one-man outfits most likely won't want to take the risk/liability of producing something so safety critical, and somewhere that'll 'engineer' it (which for this purpose really means will take the liability risk) will probably charge you too much to be worth it.

I don't know where you're based, but some 'hackspace' places have milling machines. Maybe you could diy it, with a bit of practice and a lot of planning then it's for the most part just a series of x and y coordinates. Tool speeds and feeds can be fount online.
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[stinkwheel]

Surely just making a new back plate wouldn't be all that hard to do by hand with a hacksaw and some files/burrs? Especially if you made it from alloy. If you can make it in MDF, you can make it in alloy.

Steel might take a wee bit longer but same principals apply.

I'm presuming the pins are removable? So no specialist tools required, just a hacksaw, some files, a decent pillar drill and a tap.

In fact, a half decent jigsaw will cut mild steel plate with the correct blade and plenty of cooling/lube. Just go slow then finish with a file/burr to remove any stress risers.
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[stevo as b4]

Cheers all for the replies and advice.
I've found a couple of firms that might be able to quote me a new carrier to the dimensions I need.

The carrier is not flat and the sliding pins have little boss's on the back of carrier plate, so it'd be a ball ache to make them myself. It also looks like they are welded into the carrier plate too, so I'm still not fully off the welding a new tab onto my carrier idea.

What material would a sliding piston brake carrier be best to make from? I know the old one is steel, but I'm not sure if the carrier is part sintered metal.

Would a decent aluminium be just as good if a firm was going to CNC me a new carrier? I'm thinking alloy would be easier to machine than steel and if it's strong enough it'd save grams too, not that I'm bothered about weight.

[dydey90]

A CNC machine will barely notice the difference between most metals. I’d imagine most places would supply mild steel as standard, but aluminium or stainless will be best for rust. Personally I’d go stainless, the strength is more important than the weight here.

If you can provide pictures or paint diagrams people might be able to offer better solutions though.
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