Rear brake

[Mikey82]

Is there any improvement I can do to improve the rear brake?
The pedal goes quite a long way down before brake engages, and if I spin the wheel without brake lever pressed I can hear the brakes shoes start to bind so not much play for adjustment…
Thanks in advance

[Worty]

My GF is exactly the same.  It also feels quite 'spongy' - no positive 'feel' to it like the front brake.  If I adjust to the point I'm starting to get a decent brake in terms of manageable brake lever travel, it binds really badly.  Of course, riding with it binding will simply create heat and probably make the situation worse, as well as increasing your fuel consumption and grinding down the shoes.

It's been doing this for about 12,000 miles with no change.  TBH, I usually use the back brake as an auxiliary for 'slam the anchors on' situations. , and the technique usually requires me to remove my foot from the footrest and push the lever down as far as it will go.

[berger]

you need some coking works oven top wooden clogs or just bigger boots, bars open

[chaterlea25]

Hi Mikey,
Assuming you are referring to a cable operted rear brake?
A search on here should find a post of mine regarding this?
Pattern cables are 99% wrong in the dimensions.
Pattern brake shoes do not have as thick linings as the originals, so the cam lever is at the wrong angle when the shoes contact the drum.
Reline the shoes with thicker liniings and have them turned to fit the drum.
Alter the cable so that the outer is as short as possible giving an almost straight run
(Consider wheel adjustment)
Fit the lever on the cross over shaft so that it will work through 90 degrees to the cable,
Same with drum lever.

I did all this and now i can lock the rear wheel if stomp on the pedal

John

[Swarfcut]

 To echo CJ, the  angle of the cable to the cross shaft lever is where a lot of effort is wasted. The short lever should approach 90 degrees to the cable as the brake starts to bind, but never pass over 90 with the brake applied hard. As stated, the cable length errors account for most of the incorrect set ups.

 Also an old and stretched outer cable has to be compressed before the inner can apply any force, so more pedal movement lost. 

 Later models have the lever on the drum pointing down  and this "reverse lever"  position can also improve performance..

 Swarfy.

[JulianS]

Presuming we are talking about a full width iron hub then if not already done I suggest centralising the shoes in the hub. Slacken the pivot nut on the brake plate, apply brake, you will probably see the pivot move slightly, tighten nut.

If using floating shoes make sure they are assembled the right way around.

If the linings are riveted check linings are tight against the shoe with no gaps.

[BagONails]

There has been a lot of discussion on here about these rear brakes (and the front full width drum is far from good as well). A search will reveal lots of good information.

I second everything that has been said so far and I have made significant improvements to mine by adopting tips from the good gentlemen in this group. I would say though it still isn't anything like as sharp as I think it should be and I still have a mushy feel to the pedal. I've even got a solid rod actuator so no dodgy cables involved and yet still squishy underfoot with no real bite. I am pretty convinced either the back plate is weak and deflects or the drum is weak and expands or the pedal is too long and bends off under load or probably a combination of all three but there is significant lost movement somewhere in the system!

Conversely the dangerously ineffective front brake feels as wooden as a wooden thing despite all the aforementioned tuning hints being applied and more. It is better but that's coming off a very low base...The biggest single improvement front and back was after I increased the cut away  of the leading shoe in each case to nearly 25% of the available arc length which suggests to me in both cases I'm just not getting enough force to the leading shoe to make them work as they should.

Seriously thinking about a TLS conversion now.