My parents were VERY poor when I was growing up. So much so that they could only afford one bicycle for my brother and I to share. Talk about a struggle of who got the bike "this time". And of course it had a "New Departure" brake on it 80 years ago. The more wealthy kids always had "Bendix" on their bikes. They shamed me and my parents with statements like, "YOUR bike is NO good because of those stupid brakes". I obviously felt very bad and was ashamed to ride unless they were not around to ridicule me. So when you said Bendix and New Departure it brought back some sad nostalgic memories of my early childhood. But as Jesus is my witness, NOTHING could stop my love for my parents. For they did the best they could. May the Lord rest their dear souls.
That was very interesting. I guess at some level I always wondered what was in there. Here I am 70 years old and never took one of those apart. I just did not want to take the time to put it back together if a lot of parts fell out. Anyway you did a good enough job to make up for all of us and now we will always know what is inside a coaster brake. Thanks for sharing.
LOL, you sure have a way of bringing back old memories. For some reason, when I was a kid early 50's, we found it necessary to work on our bikes. Tip them over on the seat and take that back wheel off and take the hub apart and change the grease. We would take the cone out and wash them off, in a can of gas, and put them back together again. Then we would go after the crank. We even took the pedals off and oiled them up. I forgot all about doing that and can't think why we did it other than being mechanics. At first I didn't have a bike but my sister did. Great video and subject. I doubt its been done before. Cheers
It's amazing how, as kids, we would take apart most things, but investigating the mysterious rear hub on our bikes and anything on dad's car or in his workshop were strictly off limits!
Thanks again. another childhood mystery solved. I have always had one of those minds that wants to know how it works. You answer many questions for me, all be it 40 years late! Very grateful. Just one more thing, a big thanks to the designers of these mechanical marvels that you show. Our lives are so much richer because of them.
Bravo Tubalcain! You've done it again.... You've made video viewing so interesting, enlightening and very enjoyable. Thanks very much for all the time you take to make things so easily understandable. Hooray for cut-aways! If every classroom in America had a teacher as practical and straight-forward as you, it would be 1958 all over again. And I mean that in the best possible way. Long live Mr. Wizard.
Every time I watch your videos you take me back in time when we had to learn to fix/repair everything, AND it was a lot of fun, I feel sorry/sad for today's young and the "throw-away" society. : (
Most definitely we are still here. 45 and still learning how to fix shit with my two hands. i think the generation X are the last of the "do it yourselves" When i was a child i had to learn to work and fix everything i broke or found broken. If it's broken more likely it'll get fixed if not well I'll keep it just Incase i could use parts from it in something else
You, Sir, are a true educator. A rare breed indeed. Thank you so much for your thorough explanation and patience in knowing repeating yourself is everything to those of us who may not have picked up what you put down the first time. you have earned a fan for life.
Mr Pete what a wonderful explanation! I'm 54 and never knew how a coaster brake worked. The cutaway was a critical part of the explanation! Thank you for taking so much time to make this video. A big thumbs up to you sir! eric
I'm 62 years old and my childhood had a 20" sears spider bike my dad got me for my 12th birthday. It had coaster brakes. (I think Bendix) and I rode the wheels right off that thing. God, did I ever put the miles on that thing. And my buddies and I would go over to one or another's house and clean and shine out bikes up. They took a beating, but they were our pride and joy.We rode all summer long. Man O man, those really were the days. Thanks for bringing back the memories Tubalcain.
Wow, I remember those. Me and my brother used to collect every junk bike we could find and strip them for parts. we had a garage full of bike parts. If a bunch of friends showed up to go ride and one didn't have a bike we would just build him one on the spot. Only things we ever spent any allowance money on was the occasional can of spray paint and some matching hand grips to make one of our creations a little bit pretty.
I am the fame way... we had to share with my other 3 brothers...and then I have this obsession to fix bicycles that I found on the street, i think i had put together more than 50 of then... then give then away to family and friends... in the process of fixing a beach cruiser, found it in the dumpster at work... by watching videos like this was able to repair the coaster brake.... is a great satisfaction.
As a child of the 1950's I can't tell you the joy I had in tearing my rear hub apart to "fix" it. In reality there was nothing wrong with it but I figured out how to get it apart and successfully put it back together. No one but me seemed to care but it was a big deal to me. My brother had a two speed coaster brake wheel. I never got a chance to tear it apart. But just like the coaster brake you shifted gears by kicking the pedal back but not far enough to hit the brakes. I know, I am talking too much, my failing. But I also remember our bike races with heart stopping skids to a stop and we'd jump to test our hubs to see if they were scaling hot. They weren't but we imagined we could start a fire from hot brakes. It was easy to entertain us... No reply needed or expected. I loved this video...
This is a GREAT video! I always wondered how these worked but of course never dared as a kid to try to take one apart. I always thought they used a cam actuator or some kind of Sprague clutch but this is much more sophisticated than I suspected. A real testament to engineering, with the hardened drum, critical angles, metal on metal braking, multiple thread actuators, etc. And what great memories you shared! It really is amazing how robust these are as we beat them mercilessly. I remember getting a 3 speed and thinking I was king of the road. I'm sure you clipped playing cards to your frame to buzz against the spokes as well. You should paint the sides of the cutaway red to look like all the great commercial engine and transmission cutaways. Maybe start a collection of cutaways. Then you could open your own branch of the Museum of Science and Industry where we haunted the halls looking at all the cool mechanisms in the stairwells and the engine cutaways. They used to have a whole display of vintage aircraft engines in the balcony that are now all long gone.
Thanks, This brings back memories as this was the first mechanism I took apart. Having a paper route in grade school you needed a bike to shorten delivery time. I remember taking the back hub apart in 7th or 8th grade because the brake would not work. Ultimately the brake shoes were worn. It took me a number of trials to take it apart and diagnose what was the root cause of failure. It was a dirty job and the first thing you did was fill an old coffee can with some gas and wash all the dirty grease from the parts. It was a small yet significant accomplishment fixing your own bike. Perhaps the reason I chose engineering as a profession. Keep the vids coming! Great Work.
Wow, what a walk down memory lane! Running my paper route twice a day, I went through these things faster than I did front tires! I became a whiz at replacing both. (Small town Missouri. 1952). Thanks!
It's all about the cutaway -- that's what makes it click. Thanks so much for taking the time and energy to actually do that, it helped me immensely in my current project.
This is the first of your video's I've watched but I learned something today I've always wondered about but had never researched. Your disassembly of the drum and explanation and especially the cut-out visual of the drum, make the mechanics of riding/braking easy to understand. Needless to say, I can now identify how a crankshaft on a coaster-brake bike propels the bike forward, or alternatively slows it down by pushing the brake shoes to expand against the walls of the drum, depending on which way you pedal (and the so-called "cone" either screwing toward the sprocket or toward the brake shoes). Thanks to the internet and video's such as yours, people can easily become "smarter" about whatever it is they're interested in. I found your video because I was trying to figure out how to force a stopping skid using coaster brakes. THANKS !!!
Well done sir! I've been wondering about that for about fifty years. Thank you! (One point though... Perhaps kids should be given mechanical devices like these to pull apart and reassemble so they can learn what used to be taught in school...)
thanks for being a grandfather to all us strangers, the kind with long stories and explanations that bore us as kids but wish we could have back as adults. great vid.
When I was 7 or 8, I guess, I could overhaul Bendix and sometimes New Departure coaster brakes. I did it for all my friends to re-lubricate the bearings so our bikes would coast efficiently and to tighten up loose wobbling rear wheels. The New Departure was more complicated and sometimes I couldn't get them back together properly. I did not understand how either one worked until now. Thank you Mr. Pete. This brake you demonstrate looks like the New Departure design if memory serves however it was over 50 years ago!
Very nice to see how my old bicycle used to work. I actually came here because of a sudden obsession to know how these brakes worked. All I could remember was the metal tongue thing sticking out and to the side of the hub. I remember wearing out my tires trying to see who could skid the most down hill or make a large sweeping action with the back tire while breaking. What fun we had as children.
Very nice video! If you come across one of the shifting hub gears, it would be nice to see how those work as well. The older ones are usually 3-speed (at least here in Germany), but you can get them up to 14-speed (Rohloff 500/14) now.
+mrpete222 My father in law still rides his old green Schwinn 3 speed. I give him crap all the time because of the rust on it. I call it the tetanus shot!
+MrBen527 You may laugh at "Tetanus shot" but depending on brand and model it is likely worth $200- $500 plus even in it's rusty condition. If it's something highly sought after it could be worth more than that. I've seen a rusty old tricycle that I wouldn't have given a plug nickle for sell at a swap meet for $500. Don't ever under estimate the value of those old bikes.
+mrpete222 I have about a dozen of them. I rebuild them at work, as well as any other internal gear hub. The rare strange ones are the 2 speed kick back. Kick it back a little to shift gears hi/low, kick it back more for the brake. 2 gears, one brake, no cable. If you were closer, without a border between, I would send you one, as well as a sturmey archer 3 speed. Incidentally, one of the first downhill offroad bicycle races was called repack because they would have to repack the boiled out grease from the coaster brake each ride (or half way down). Look up repack mountainbike....
Thank you Sir for that nice video. It was a lot of work for you to do that cutaway and show us the working mechanism. Much appreciated. As a kid I did everything I could on my own to my bikes. Took apart the head sets, cranks and bottom brackets, but never the wheel hubs except to grease the bearings. I always wondered what was inside my rear hub and thanks to you I now know. I still love bicycles and your video again substantiates for me the marvelous engineering advances that has gone into that mode of transportation over the centuries.
Well I'll be... when I was a boy I actually refurbished a rusted bicycle that had been discarded, I took it apart, cleaned, painted and greased everything EXCEPT the coaster brake, because that was just a mystery... In any case after owning that bike for a while the coaster brake quit working. All these years I had no idea what had happened, NOW I know that the drive cone had rusted to the female cone! The pedals became direct drive at that point and the coast and brakes were inoperable. I still rode that bike, and in fact I used to love riding down the hill in front of my house, with the pedals locked I could put all my weight on one foot, stand up, lift my leg over the seat and coast down the hill pogo-ing while standing on one side of the bike holding the handlebars with one hand and the seat in the other! That was pretty grand... until after doing that hundreds of times, at mid hill, the rust broke free, my direct drive went back to being a coaster brake and with me on one side of the bike the pedal SLAMMED into the brakes and I went down in a heap... fast! I'll never forget that and now I know how it happened.
What a memory you have brought back. Bendix and shimano where the two types I was always taking apart and greasing. Some had two brake shoes and a few had 4. Always tie down the brake arm or would kick back on ya. The joys of being 10 years old and learning about mechanical things. There’s slot that youth today are missing out by not working on a bike. I’m thinking of bribing in one for my new young students to learn on.
Again Sir, very interesting and informative not to mention entertaining! I'm 71 and always wanted to know how that worked but never bothered to take one apart. Thanks
Awesome video. I remember as a kid having a braking problem with my bike. So as many kids would do, i pulled the hub apart. Only to find I was unable to reassemble it. I then had to save my pocket money to send the whole thing to the bike shop to repair. I was never game enough to pull it apart again to study the inner workings. Now I know. Thank You.
We didn't have much growing up and my first bicycle was one I put together from parts of other bicycles. I did all my mechanical work on my bikes myself. Watching your video brought back many good memories. I remember taking a coaster brake apart just to how it worked and I was successful in putting it back together. Great video.
This was a fantastic video. Thank you. Not only did you explain the function of each part but did a cutaway and then we could really see all the action. Fantastic invention in the coaster brake, had no idea. You helped me understand so I could intelligently take a part, clean, lube, and re-assemble a 1952 Schwinn phantom. Awesome work sir. thank you.
Awesome video! The tubalcain cutaway really helped me visualize the operation of the internal mechanism. This satisfies my 60+ years of curiosity of how it works. We need more videos like this!
I always wondered about the inner-workings of the Coaster Brake system. Thank you so much Mr. Pete for another excellent visual display and demonstration.
This brings back memories! I was a bicycle mechanic back in the '80s. I rebuilt many (probably thousands) of coaster brake hubs. Thanks for all the videos you do!
How awesome! I have a collectors bike that I took apart as a child and could never fix! You have equipped me the knowledge to fix and repair my bike! Great instructor Sir!
What a great tutorial with the cut view. I spent hours with a bag of parts from a wheel purchase that came disassembled. I got it assembled by logic but now I know how it works. Thank you!
I had this question of How Coaster brakes work for a long time. You made it very clear, it's quite fascinating that you took so much of effort to show this to us
i am 67 years old retired airforce aircraft mechanic and i wanted to know what made the brakes work . thank you for taking the time and effort to educate every inquiring mind .
That's freaking genius! I'm approaching 50 years old and cannibalized tons of bikes in the 70s & 80s and never knew how that worked. Thanks Mr. Pete! I always feel a bit smarter after watching your videos. I'd say I wish you were my shop teacher in high school, but I was pretty difficult to handle back then. Much respect for you from New Jersey!
I had a two-speed hub with a coaster brake in a bike. The gear change was by back peddling slightly but not enough to apply the brake - there was no separate cable control. I also had a three speed hub, but that didn't have a brake. I never took one apart so it was interesting to see your video. One problem with coaster brakes was when you stopped on a hill with the pedals straight up and down and then there was no easy way to get them to the desired 'quarter to three' position ready for the hill start. I remember I used to apply the front brake and push forward on the handlebars so as to lift the rear wheel of the ground so the pedals could be easily repositioned.
Thanks for the video, I used to work in the bicycle industry and have dismantled many of those, and it would have been nice to have something like the cutout you made as a teaching tool. One of the neat features of a coaster brake hub is that when it is coasting it allows the wheel to turn freely in either direction, whereas a ratchet-type freewheel will only allow free movement in the forward direction. If a coaster brake hub is modified to no longer brake, usually with a clip/spacer, the bike can be rolled backwards without the crank being forced to pedal backwards, which can be very useful for freestyle/trick bikes.
Excellent educational video showing theory of operation, something rare on RU-vid. When we know theory of operation, we can much more easily diagnose and fix problems. Most of RU-vid is a wasteland of commercial stuff! Thank you!
You are a great teacher, I am very intrigued. I sure did wear out a lot of tires when I was a kid, my Mom would yell at me when I would leave a 10' skid mark on our sidewalk. Now I'm in my 40's and this brought back some memories, and answered my questions from many years ago about how these worked.
Awesome video!!! I always wondered how coaster brakes worked growing up, and why they sometimes slipped out under heavy pedaling. Such a simple design. Loved the cut-away as well. Always something to learn from your videos. Thank you good sir.
You NEVER give us too much information! It's interesting how tough these little gears have to be. They take all of the rider and bicycle weight plus the forward inertia.
I love hearing your stories and that you share your knowledge with us. It really means a lot to me. Your videos are so good. My two children and I love your videos so much. You are giving back to the world in so many ways with the videos you make. 💜
Thanks for the video. Ever since I was a kid, I have always wondered exactly how those coaster brakes worked. Now, nearly 50 years later, I do. Keep up the good work!
I'm 40 with a 3-year-old, and I attempted to change my daughter's coaster bike into a freewheel bike without understanding the interworkings of the hub. You are AWESOME, thanks.
This takes me back too. We used to tear into these also; we'd often munch up some bearing and have to replace them. Sometimes bend or strip an axle as well. We were hard on our bikes. I don't recall New Departure, but Bendix was definitely the big dog and in later years, IIRC, Shimano. We hated taking the Shimanos apart because instead of two large brake shoes like the Bendix, it had four small ones. That made it difficult for one person to get everything lined up and assembled whilst holding it all together. Then back pedaling free-wheelers with hand brakes became in vogue and gone was the coaster brake, you weren't cool if you had one. :o/ Another excellent Tubalcain cutaway! Mr. Pete has the best teaching aids ever!
Your comment about America these days reminded me of an article I read once. I figure you might like this story. A woman in her late 90s was being interviewed about her and her husbands soon to be wedding anniversary. They were high school sweethearts and married young. The reporter asked what the secret to their marriage was. Her reply was, "Back in my day we didn't have much. We worked hard for what money we did have and when something was broken you didn't throw it away, you fixed it. That's just how our generation was". I wish I could have met her. We would've had good conversation.
Thanks so much - watching in Brisbane, Australia. My son's bike has this type of hub, it started to be very noisy when he rode it. He's out grown the bike, but I wanted to fix it and pass it on somewhere (not just discard it when we got him a bigger bike). I noticed your comments about "out on the kerb, that's what we do..." - you said in America, but I think most western society is similar - this was a lament of my late father's also, and I feel similar. Anyway, I found one of the bearings in the hub was destroyed (can't figure out how that happened) so now with some help from yours and other videos, I've fixed it with a $5 part, and it's near new. Thanks again.
I knew you meant tires, because we did the same thing. We learned to put a boot in the tire to cover the hole. We used to cut a leather strap to ride on the chrome axles to keep them polished, but that didn't work for the ones with oilers. Very informative. I still don't understand the thumbs down, on these videos. I love 'em.
Thanks, I grew up riding coaster brake bikes in the early 70s and never knew how the things worked. I don't recall ever having a problem with them so I never needed to take one apart - good thing as I probably wouldn't have gotten it back together!
Hi Mr. Pete. I really enjoyed this one. My mom had a bike with the coaster-brake system on it. I learned to drive a bicycle on that one! We also had a bike with a coaster brake system that had a 3-speed transmission built into the rear hub. It was all you need. The low range was adequate for any hill that you would reasonably ride a bike on. The two other gears would allow speeds of 30+ MPH. It was plenty adequate. There was no chain derailer or other junk to cause the chain to fall off. I would love to see how that worked! I really enjoy your way of explaining things. Thumbs-up from me. I don't know why anyone would vote down any of your videos. I have noticed that some people seem to subscribe just so they can vote thumbs-down on each new video that I post. I wish You Tube would require that a user post a comment, stating the reason, before they are allowed to vote thumbs-down. That would make people think before they do that, since some of us take it seriously. It would also cut out the rift-raft who will go through a user's entire video list and thumbs-down each and every video.
+davida1hiwaaynet It would be interesting to see how those older internal 3 speed hubs worked. I've never ridden one of them either, just the standard single speed bicycles, and a couple of mountain bikes, I think both were 10 speeds, but those dang parts never seemed to stay adjusted properly and they are expensive to repair I won't waste my money on them.
+davida1hiwaaynet I had an English three speed bicycle I inherited from a cousin of mine when I was about 13, it had the coaster brake on it. I would like to know how it worked compared to this system. I don't remember the make of it and my mom sold it when I was in boot camp.
that was the best explanation of a coaster brake hub, or for that matter any kind of bicycle hub that i've ever seen. What a very interesting explanation. So very clear. You my friend are remarkable in your clarity. Thank you very much for showing this. I just picked up a discarded bike and i was going to take apart the hub, now I have a good grasp of what i'm dealing with. Keep up the good work, looking forward to more from you in the future
Don’t know how this came up after so long but I’m glad it did. I remember taking mine apart many times. The Bendix coaster brake was on the more expensive bikes. It had a red line painted on the middle of the hub. SHEIN bikes that had the two speed axle had three lines. Thanks Lyle.
There are so many things around us with moving parts in them, but only few of us know how they work. And you sir of course know a lot about those moving parts. I thank you for these videos and thanks you for taking your valuable time to share with us.
I love the nostalgic references and the st. louis motor aside. It's like being in grandpa's shop and listening to his tall tales and reflections on life in general."It will end up on the curb, because we throw everything out here in America." I came looking for coaster brake video, but stayed for the folksy charm.
Good stuff Mr.Pete.We used to build a lot of our bike from parts we garbage picked.It seemed that most American manufactures used standardized parts.Except Schwinn! They had different tires,tubes.chains etc.No one seemed to ever throw them out. I know they were well built in Chicago and kind of expensive.I always(and still do)wanted one of the 5 speed Krate bikes.I think those are the coolest bikes EVER!! :)
The 3-speed was a Sturmey-Archer gear shift with a chain that went into the hub. A lever on the handle bars moved the gearing through 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears. On the coaster brake, another variant was an internal "split-cylinder" between the two cones. The split was in the shape of a vee. When the brakes were applied, brake shoes pressed against the split-cylinder which pressed against the drum much in the same way that brake shoes are applied on automobiles. Whenever I took the gearing apart, you always had to watch out for those ball-bearings as you could easily lose them, especially if you were doing your repair work on the grass. I quickly learned that, after cleaning off all the black grease, to grease the bearing race before inserting the ball bearings so that they would stay in place. This video brought back lotsa memories, fer shur, fer shur!
Thank you for taking the time to load and explain how the coaster brake works. This was a first for me seeing a “cut away” which gave me a bigger picture on how the mechanics of this genius mechanical marvel works. Can’t wait to watch your other videos and you got yourself a new subscriber.
Hey Mr Pete, Thank you very much for doing this video. I'm 65 and never knew how this system worked but now I do. I never thought that it was this complicated (but easy) it you know what I mean. Again thank you. Later
this video has helped me immensely! i am engineering my own bike to fabricate and sell (because protected biking lanes are becoming more common in urban areas) and i wanted to implement coaster brakes. this visualization has helped me so much, thank you!
thanks for another great "what makes it work" video. I used to disassemble the hub for cleaning and greasing. I remember the brake shoes but not the other components. Somehow I managed to get it all back together though.
Never had one of them apart to inspect before, but now I'm enlightened and know what to look for when people ask for help. Thanks again, for teaching us, mrpete! ;)
