Poor front brake on A7

[stu.andrews]

Huddie

You said that you sorted your front brake out- what did you do?

[huddie]

Hi Stu, What the post was meant to convey was that I am about to try and sort it out. Today I have gone through the shoe centralization process as outlined by you and others. The road test of this is still to come. What I have also done is to move the brake operating lever closer to the handle bar (small hands) so as to get a bit more leverage. I did this by slackening off the cable and then inserting a spacer about 4mm wide over the cable between the lever and the fixed mount and then readjusting the cable.
Regards Huddie
.

[stu.andrews]

Best of luck with the road test- let us all know how it goes (& stops!).

[muskrat]

 G'day Huddie,
                   you mention brake shoe adjuster so I assume you have Ariel type hubs with the 1/2" sq where the fulcrum pin is on others. Bit of a chore to set up right but good when done. Trial & error. I set up with adjuster backed off and adjust cable to give a little play, then wind in adjuster till the shoes just rub. Then it's trial with more cable/less adjuster or vise versa till I'm happy. I also added an inch to the brake arm.
Cheers

[huddie]

Hi Muskrat, Now I understand why I didn't understand. Proves the point that no matter how daft you look or sound, keep asking the questions. I will give your method a try. Cheers mate.
Regards Huddie

[huddie]

Hello All, Finally got the road test done today on my front brake. Got to say it's much better now I have centralised the shoes. Never going to throw me over the bars though but definitely better,feels like it's got quite a bit more bite than before.
Also moving the lever closer to the bars with the spacer helped get better leverage (small hands).
Maybe new softer shoes when it's laid up for the winter.
Regards for now Chris

[Jules]

Really interesting read on the brakes in this thread. I felt I had to comment after Huddie's last comment. I wont be in any position to check my brakes for quite a while to compare my feelings with years past, but I do remember nearly dropping my A7 in my teens because the front brake was really good. I have a distinct memory of braking really hard (with my then to be wife on pillion too!) and sliding forward right over the top of the tank and almost losing it. That doesn't sound like the braking performance that people are talking about in here, maybe the linings have changed dramatically over the years (non asbestos etc) I cant see that anything else would have changed (assuming they are setup correctly, as you say in the thread)????

[Rocket Racer]

thought this article was pertinent:
http://www.engineeringinspiration.co.uk/drumbrakes.html

Most of the BSA brakes are fixed pivot, although the very late A10's had floating shoes with even less pad to reduce grabbing. The pivot point is identical, only the shoes are different at the pivot end and have the asymmetric pad attachment.

while these brakes will never compete with modern ones, getting them correctly adjusted and using the best pad materials certainly helps. A common refrain is that the brakes were much better before they were relined...

I'm no expert but the variations you see between similar brakes can be huge and can't be simply blamed on all SLS simply being rubbish. Well worth garage tinkering time...

[muskrat]

 That's a good link RR. I find I learn something every day here.
Cheers

[a10 gf]

Rocket Racer, great link indeed. +1

[Jules]

Agree RR thats a really good easily read summary!

[BSA_54A10]

Just a word of warning about the article.
It is specific to hydraulic power assisted brakes.
Most of our mechanical brakes are self serving so they need to contact differently in order to grab.

[Rocket Racer]

Just a word of warning about the article.
It is specific to hydraulic power assisted brakes.
Most of our mechanical brakes are self serving so they need to contact differently in order to grab.

Have seen two hydraulic front brake drum conversions on classics (one on an ariel, the other on an M21), both were very effective. That is something I would love to do one day!
The M21 had a nice strong steel brake plate, the Ariel I don't recall.
Very common mod front and rear on racing sidecars in the day.
Lose the spongey cable from the front and rear!

[Rocket Racer]

Just a word of warning about the article.
It is specific to hydraulic power assisted brakes.
Most of our mechanical brakes are self serving so they need to contact differently in order to grab.

excepting our brakes are lifted by a rotating cam that lifts each shoes slightly differently, can you expand on how hydraulic brakes differ conceptually? Information on such topics in a readable form is hard to come by.
Obviously hydraulics can apply more force and for that matter if the anchor points are broader to coincide with the width of the hydraulic lifter that will alter the degree of servo assistance ie the point grabbing occurs but beyond that...
Tim

[BSA_54A10]

Where to start.

You need to chase up brake articles from pre WWII cars which did not have power assistance or even better the vehicles that had mechanical linkage brakes and not hydraulic braking systems.
Just about every thing you will find on the web will be about "modern" brakes.
There is some good stuff in the Victory library which I would presume you have already read.

A mechanical brake needs to bite into the drum so that the rotation of the drum dragges the shoe tighter into the drum, much like a drum clutch.
It is called the self servo action .
Our shoes should be radiused larger so that they touch at each end but not in the middle.
The leading end bites into the drum which pushes the shoe in the direction of rotation flexing the entire lining into contact with the drum.
Your brake lever effort is basically to stop the shoe skipping off the drum ( as the article stated ) not forcing the shoe into the drum.
This is the action of the leading shoe.

The trailing shoe is a different animal.
The only thing that applies any braking effort is your hand and that is bugger all when you consider what your grip strength is even allowing for the multiplying effect of the various levers

The trick to get your brakes to work better is to get the the rear of the shoe as close to the drum as you can.
the position of the rear end of the shoe determines what the radius of the shoe needs to be in order to bite but not grab or skip ( as per the article )

Note this applies to fixed shoes only.
With floating shoes it is not quite the same.

The biggest problem with our bikes now is that the drums have all worn so the angles between the shoes & drums will be all wrong to obtain the greatest efficiency.
For street use I shim at the the pivot. Others replace the pivot with a bigger diameter one and modify the shoes to fit to move the back end of the shoes closer to the drum.
Now a word of warning here as well.
Our shoes have no retaining pins so the only thing stopping the shoes twisting is the flange on the pivot and cam ( if it has one ).
For racing you will also need to consider the stiffness of the backing plate which will also flex particularly if it has a single anchor strap.
If the shoe decided that twisting off the pivot while you are under heavy braking  is the path of least resistance the results will not be pretty.