drum rear brake

[80brat]

any help on making them work any better THANKS

 

[xjwmx]

What kind of problem are you having with it? You can clean the shoes and the drum with brake cleaner. You can tap the pivot out with a hammer and clean both halves and grease it lightly to keep it from sticking. Once in a blue moon seems to be often enough. There's a felt washer there on the outside you can pack with grease to help keep water out of the pivot. You can adjust the thing on the hub that the pulling rod connects to so that it and the rod make 90 degrees when the shoes contact the drum, which gives it the most leverage.

It's powerful enough to skid the rear tire, which you don't want to do, especially not while using the front brake too. It's good not to have to deal with a disk rear.

 

[TwoManyXS1Bs]

Long ago when I changed the rear shoes, I noticed that my new (budget) shoes had only about half the brake lining thickness as the original factory shoes. This left a lot of slack to take up during adjustment. But, the most important shortcoming of these budget shoes is that, when expanded to brake, only the part of the shoe near the cam makes contact with the drum, the other ends that pivot on the post will never move enough to make contact.

This reduces braking effectiveness, and concentrates heat to just that end of the shoe. After a while the brake shoes will settle-in and seat better, but may never use more than half of the braking surface.

I see this same thing (thinner linings) on car brake shoes. Some car brake adjusters expand the shoes at the opposite side from the slave cylinders, so they will make full contact. Others have the adjusters near the slave cylinder, the other ends pivot on fixed posts, and only drag the shoe near the slave cylinder.

I've thought about making a spacer/bushing that would fit onto the fixed pivot pin, and spread the shoes a little more at that end, so that the center of the new shoes make contact when expanded, and have a chance to seat/break-in to get full contact. This would also remove much of that excess initial brake lever adjustment.

But, this spacer/bushing thing is a little more complicated than it sounds. It would need to accomodate and retain the 'capture' feature of the original pivot post. So, this has been a backburner project....

 

[80brat]

Thanks I have cleaned and lube and scuffed the shoes not replaced any parts ,but it will not skid the tire unless I standon it Twomany thanks need to look at that Im wanting to make a longer lever, build is not stock,really not wanting to have a front brake So rear needs to work good

 

[xjwmx]

it will not skid the tire unless I standon it

Squeeze the front to move the weight forward and it will skid the rear easy as pie. If you do it at any speed, the skidding rear, not having any traction, will overtake the braking front by going out to the side. When it reaches full lock on the steering it's guaranteed high side. Regarding not wanting a front, it's self destruction if you do any real riding because your stopping distance will be phenomenally long. Easy Rider wasn't real. Even though they did die...

 

[XSLeo]

Better shoes will help. Call Michael Morse at 650 central or Vintage brake, he runs both.
He has been racing these bike for a long time. He has several compounds of lining material.
I can't recommend using just the rear brakes. No front may look cool but healing up after a crash that front brakes would have prevented is not so cool.
Leo

 

[retiredgentleman]

Thanks I have cleaned and lube and scuffed the shoes not replaced any parts ,but it will not skid the tire unless I standon it Twomany thanks need to look at that Im wanting to make a longer lever, build is not stock,really not wanting to have a front brake So rear needs to work good

I'd like to urge you to install a front brake on your bike. I can't believe anyone would drive down the road at 100 km/hr (60 mph), without a front brake. Maybe if you plan to only drive at 50 km/hr/30 mph, could a rear brake only be considered safe.

I don't know your experience with motorcycles, but if you ride a bike very much, there are emergencies that occur from time to time, that require a strong front and rear brake.

I wasn't going to reply to this post, but I don't want to see you end up in a hospital or worse.

Good luck, if you go with rear only.

 

[80brat]

Going with ferodo bmc545 shoes from central thanks for input, lots of good knowledge Ill rethink the front brake

 

[650Skull]

Graph for stopping distances for the Front only-rear only-front/rear combined brakes on a bike and the second shows the reaction time before braking starts,

Second pic is for a median sized vehicle but the reaction time is relevant.
Adding reaction time to a, rear brake only bike, makes for some scary scenarios