My home-made Brakes
I took off the original (Azusa OEM) drum brakes. I felt they were way
too heavy, more braking power than needed, and were of poor quality.
One could easily argue the quality of the ones shown here too thought,
as they provide only minimal braking power. But it is possible for the
Azusa drum brakes to break apart inside the drum, locking the wheel
and causing a ground loop. I know of one guy this happened to in a
Rans Coyote.
In these photos, the black lever is 0.5" chromoly. It is pulled by a cable at one end, pressing an oak block against the tire at the other end. The lever fulcrum also is chromoly tube welded to the lever. The fulcrum has a 3/16" bolt with a couple of Delron sleeves as bearings. The whole thing is mounted to the axle with a piece of AL channel. (Also note: I put a piece of angle stock on the existing axle bolt to hold the cable end.)
One more thing: I'm not sure this arrangement would be adequate on conventional size tires. The force of this brake shoe against the tire is not very high, and a smaller tire means less leverage cuz the shoe would be rubbing at a shorter radius. I use ~18" diameter "tundra" tires.