Dummie’s guide to carrier steering and brake adjustment please

[Big D]

Gidday all,

I’m wondering if I can get some advice on adjusting the brakes and steering on my Australian LP2A carrier. I’ve searched the forum and haven’t been able to find a definitive guide.

I haven’t had the carrier that long and since I’ve had it I had noticed that it required quite a bit of steering effort to get it to do hard turns. I’d also noticed that the brakes in general could not be relied upon and seemed really weak.

Moderate turns seemed okay but going around a ninety degree bend or turning on the spot required quite a bit of arm and shoulder work. Almost all of my use in that time had been on tarsealed surfaces for parades and displays, and I hadn’t had a chance to try it on a soft grass surface.

The problem became more apparent last weekend at a show where I ran the carrier on grass and very fine gravel driveway surface. What I found was that I couldn’t get it to do a hard turn to the left on the grass until I got onto the fine gravel surface, and the she started to come around.

Interestingly, thinking back to where I had driven it on the road, most of the turns were right turns so the problem has probably always been there but I just haven’t noticed it.

I had a couple of other club guys try it as well and they also noticed the struggle to get it to turn to the left. One of them also thought the right brake didn’t seem to be working that well.

Upon closer investigation, the bell crank on the left side seems well out of kilter. When the carrier is stationary, you need to rotate the wheel a good ¾ of a turn to get the left brake to come on.

The steering adjustment also seems a little off centre to, favouring the left side. That is, the steering column base seems canted to the left a little (from the driver’s seat) with the steering wheel in the central position.

I’ve read and reread the steering and brake sections of the manual now and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how the steering and braking system work. Now I need a bit of a Dummie’s guide to the best order to do it. I am also a little confused as to the points where some of the adjustments should actually be made.

From what I have gleaned from the manual, this is what I need to do, in this order.

1. Position brake operating lever so that the distance between lever axis and centre of brake pull rod clevis is 5/8”.
2. Adjust to ¼” the clearance between clevises at ends of brake rods and slotted steering control.
3. Offset bell cranks so that centre of outside clevis pin is 5/8” to the rear of bell crank pivot pin, or 9inch from face of rear bulkhead.
4. Adjust steering control links until brakes come on at just over half a turn on the steering wheel.

Have I got the general gist of this?

I have some questions at certain stages though:

• How much movement should there be in the brake operating lever when the brakes are activated? As it is, with the brakes fully applied, the brake operating lever moves by about 6mm. With the brake pull rod disconnected moving the brake operating lever gives a metallic sound, presumably as it comes into contact with the cam inside. I can’t get any other movement in it by hand though.

Should I be able to activate the brakes any further by hand with this lever? There seems to be no movement on it whatsoever by hand.

• The distance between the brake operating lever axis and the centre of the brake pull rod clevis is about 1” on each side of my carrier, rather than the 5/8” the manual says should be there. Is the adjustment for this as in point 1 above, done at the bell crank via the long pull rod that joins the two bell cranks, or is it just in the adjustment on the slotted steering control? From what I can see this long pull rod has opposing threads at each end.

• Is there a more scientific way of adjusting the steering control links rather than just by the approximate degree setting of the steering wheel indicated in the manual?

• If the steering adjustment is off centre, is it correct that I adjust this at the linkages running from the track displacement cam at the steering column base?


Hopefully I have explained things properly. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.


Darryl