Brakes

[G/F DAVE]

If you need a front brake that works a lot of the problems can be just the linings  & materials they are made from. My 52 plunger A10 has the single sided 8" front brake that was near useless. I have now fitted a pair of  ferodo AM4 green linings to brake shoes they are a vast improvement to overall braking & I  managed to pull out valve core from inner tube when I was testing out brake shoes for first time & actually made the front tyre squeel. Also have noticed less brake fade.On my TRI-BSA I have a EDDIE DOW TLS brake plate another good modification ( if you can find one ) . As for modifiying old machinery I like to see period parts fitted externally & overall look of a original machine.But the clever bit is if you can improve on something & keep the bike looking standard-ish. I have access to modern machines but they dont really do anything for me and much prefer a modified british bike that brakes /handles & has good lighting these are the things not found on a standard bike. G/F Dave.....P.S I agree about clutches never had much of a problem with them..

[groily]

I agree G/F Dave -don't really want a twin-leader as it would look a bit weird on a cooking machine - and ta muchly for the green linings thought. Guess this should be a new posting 'brake upgrades' really . . . . Groily

[a10 gf]

Former brake related text from clutch thread

but If anybody can come up with a front brake improvement without changing the looks, I'll pay whatever it costs!

...Front brake though is something else. Clonky - I don't like the lug system for holding the backplate against the torque reaction, nor do I like the thin nut for tightening the backplate on the axle - it's fairly feeble even with new (but bedded-in now) linings and a reasonably round drum and as-careful-as-I-could assembly. A very '50s accessory! I know we're many of us spoilt by more modern things that actually stop, but this a true weakness .  .  . my 6 yrs older AMC twin stops far better (which is more than I can say for some other parts, but there we go). Older Beesas with the 'ole in the fork legs rather than the clamps, and a torque arm instead of a lug, seem IMHO to be a tad better. While we're on, not that fond of the cross-over and cable for the rear either, and keep thinking of making up something better. Saw a mod somewhere (on this forum maybe?) that looked just great. 
However, small prices to pay for a machine that I am liking more and more the more I ride it following my reacquaintance with same.

Dave, thanks for ferodo AM4 info. Who sells such linings?

[G/F DAVE]

Hi, These linings were new old stock & I had to reline shoes myself, I think they were originally classed as a lining for race machines .Also remember they were used on electric milk floats. I reckon if you contacted ferodo they could match AM4 lining with a modern replacement material as these contain asbestos. I recently cleared out my local engineers stock of new old stock linings as they contain asbestos & they said they were not allowed to sell them.But I now have a life time stock of rear linings for my BSAs. Ferodo have a website with contact no.s so  maybe they could help. Would be interesting to find out.G/F Dave...

[Brian]

I remove the old linings from the shoes and take them to my local brake place and they bond new linings on, I then set them up in a lathe and machine them to suit the drum. I give them 1mm clearance. The brake place I go to use lining material which is colour coded and green is the softest they have. I get excellent results by doing this and can lock the wheels on the road. Some people are a bit funny about bonded linings but remember that all modern vehicles including formula 1 cars and GP bikes use bonded pads etc. I also like to maintain the original appearance of the bike and would not use a modification which changed that.           Brian.

[RichardL]

Brian,

Is that 1 mm total (by diameter), or 1 mm from each shoe (by radius)? This sounds like good advice. It just goes to show the things one does not think of on one's first build. Using stock shoes and linings, I have found that I get a chattering at slow speed or when walking the bike. I think this is because the a small area on the leading edge of the back shoe (on the front drum; 8", 1/2-wide) is contacting the drum. At riding speed there is probabaly not enough friction (by comparison to speed) to create the chatter.  I think this will go away as the offending area wears away. While turning the lining round is probably the only choice, the single cam action, with just a pivot at the opposite end, dictates that the brake linings are not concentric with the drums when the brakes are in use. I am no expert on the evolution of motorcycle brakes. I suppose that this lack of concentricty is accounted for in bikes later than '55.

Richard

[Brian]

Richard, 1mm by diameter. I try to get the shoes to be as good a fit as I can get away with but not drag on the drum. I always bevel the leading edge slightly as well. If you dont have access to a lathe to do any of this I think most brake specialist places should be able to do this. I have bought new shoes in the past only to find they didnt work as well as the old ones I took out. I think some of the replacement shoes available are of very doubtful quality.   Brian.

[RichardL]

Brian,

I think mine are the best Emgo has to offer. I wonder if you, or anyone in our vast network of contributors, knows if Emgo tapers the leading edges. Maybe they, or others, make trailing edges thicker to compensate for the lack of roundness (relating to the shoes) when brakes are applied. This is probabaly a stretch of the imagination.

Richard

[RichardL]

OK, I answered one of my own questions. I see where later brake types use two inteconnected brake cams to achieve concentric contact of brake linings with the drum. Sorry, if I have lowered the technical knowledge quotient of the membership by not knowing this simple fact.

[LJ.]

Just reviving an old thread here... What is it that I dont understand about bonded linings? I took out some shoes that have quite hard linings on, (grey ones in the pic below) they were just NOT stopping the bike and were quite dangerous I thought. There was plenty of lining on and were chamfered nicely. The drum (front) was a seven inch which I am now replacing for an eight, even treating myself to new rims etc in the process. I am also putting back on an eight inch brake plate with shoes that made way for a twin leading shoe plate for the other A10 I have, although not as good as a tls these did work quite well. Hopefully there should be a big improvement. Do the rivited linings below, look okay to you? I'm wondering if they are the Ferrodo types?

[a10 gf]

The rivets, may be perfectly adequate, but the way they are breaking up at the back...

Have the same experience with some dark grey lining. Much worse than the old (asbestos?) linings they replaced.

[BSA_54A10]

The other trick that you can try is to lengthen the brake arm on the backing plate.
One of our members who is none too large ( with hands to match) had just got his Rocket on the road but for the life of him could not get the brakes to work & was considering swapping the entire TLS front end off one of his goldies.
After a bit of a chat we decided to add 1/2" to the brake arm and then move it around one notch on the cam.
Well he did it and can now squeal the front tyre @ 60mph and reckons that he would have no trouble locking the wheel if he really wanted to.
At rest the angle between the brake cable & the arm is about 50 deg and when fully loaded gets to about 70 deg so he gets an increasing mechanical advantage the harder he applies the brake as well.
This also means that we could adjust the lever much closer to the handlebars so that his shortish fingers could get a good grip on the lever

[LJ.]

Found a bit of a suprise today when investigating further as to why the rear A10 brake was not as good as the other A10s rear brake.... I could not understand why the shoes where so far away from the drum surface. I took out the cam and checked this and compared to another one that I have. Now what do you make of this? (See Picture)



I had been using the smaller cam, but did not know that a larger one was also made. Unfortunately there are no part numbers to check against. Is any one else aware of the different sizes? I need not tell you which one was  put back in.

[beezalex]

Seems to me some alloy shoes have steel wear strips that clip to them and the cam on the left may be for these.

I've had good results using industrial linings from McMaster-Carr.  I've raced on them and used them on the road and they are quite effective.  Unfortunately, they seem to wear quickly and I only got about 10,000 miles out of them on my Royal Star.  I have both riveted them and bonded them with JB Weld.  So far so good.

[Rocket Racer]

For competition use, but keeping with a theme of period BSA, I've paired up two finned half sided hubs. The non brake half of the hub will press off, so then requires a centre sleeve made up to press the two brake hubs onto. It results in a dead sexy A10 double sided brake that could even be put back to standard if required. Mind you this is intended to haul in a racing sidecar.