Im wondering if this is a lever i can replace with any other brand of lever or does it have to be a magura’s
It’s a hydraulic brake, so you can’t just replace the lever with a normal cable brake lever. If it’s just the lever blade that’s broken I’m pretty sure you can buy spare ones (you certainly used to be able to), so you shouldn’t have to replace the whole lever unless the main body is damaged.
You can use other hydraulic levers the fitting are the same. I saw a set of shimano levers on ebay a while ago.
I don’t paticularly like the new magura lever. the clamping screw is on the wrong side so you have to take the seat off to remove or adjust the position of the lever and it’s mounting clamp isn’t as sturdy as the older style.
If I break a lever I think I would go with shimano at this point.
i dont think that is true but you can ge other aftermaket mag leavers
You may be right but they all use the same tubing so you can just put the right fitting on your brake line for whatever lever you want.
true but the magora system is defrent then other systems in its master cylander setup
Are you talking about just the lever, or the lever assembly including the master cylinder?
The Magura rim brakes use a closed system, with no master cylinder reservoir. As far as I know it is the only brake sytem that is like that. Disc brakes require an open system because they have to deal with lots of heat build up that rim brakes don’t. Putting a disc brake actuator on a rim brake may possibly work, but don’t count on it. Do not put a rim brake actuator on a disc brake.
You didn’t say what model of Magura brakes you have. If you don’t know, use these links:
Magura and Magura Cult
I make curved carbon fiber/Kevlar levers for Magura HS33 brakes. They come in RH and LH curves, and both the pre ’05 and the new versions. The attached photos of the older style curved lever aren’t very clear but that is all I could find at the moment. The red TPA knob is missing in the photos. I sell the levers for $30 each. I also have new stock Magura aluminum 2005 style levers that I swapped out, and I will sell those for $14 each.
As Dan said, the new style HS33s have the pinch bolt in an awkward location for unicycle use, but you can rotate the lever assembly to the side to access the bolt, then tighten it but not so tight that you can’t rotate the lever assembly. Then just move it into position. This is the amount of tightness you should use anyway because it will prevent most lever and actuator breakages. The lever will be able to rotate on impact and absorb some of the force against the lever. The type of mount you have will have an effect on how well this works. If it is painted steel, or bare aluminum, you may have trouble with it grabbing the paint or galling the aluminum. Sanding the inner surface of the clamp and removing sharp edges may help, and even some lubrication may be a good idea. If you remove all of the paint from a steel mount tube it should work perfectly as long as you keep it from rusting somehow. I make my brake mounts from stainless steel in large part because of the ability to smoothly rotate the lever assembly on it.
The new style actuators are more vulnerable because they hang down farther, and they have a weaker mount as Dan said. That makes it even more important for the lever to be able to rotate on the mount tube when hit.
More info is at http://www.wallisdesign.com/HANDLEpics.html
Scott
