Brakes, old or new

"Your failed, resleeved M/C's were done by who?"

Both were from a well-known supplier of sleeved MCs for Norton Commandos. He was very apologetic about the first failure - which occurred overnight with the bike sitting the garage. He sent a replacement and a few months later it failed on the road, worked fine at one stop light and failed completely - lever to the bar - when I attempted to stop at the next light. When I advised him he was "...shocked that such a thing happened" "Yeah, me too!" was my response. As the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

I have no idea re the 'construction' of the MC - whether it was threaded or not.
 
Fast Eddie said:
My recent modification:

View attachment 114101
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That is very sensible. The front brake limits the speed at which the motorcycle can be used. Drum brakes just look better. The rider adapts to the motorcycle. When you use a drum brake, you are not doing yourself any favours. These days, I know how lucky I am to be alive.
 
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MexicoMike said:
"Your failed, resleeved M/C's were done by who?"

Both were from a well-known supplier of sleeved MCs for Norton Commandos. He was very apologetic about the first failure - which occurred overnight with the bike sitting the garage. He sent a replacement and a few months later it failed on the road, worked fine at one stop light and failed completely - lever to the bar - when I attempted to stop at the next light. When I advised him he was "...shocked that such a thing happened" "Yeah, me too!" was my response. As the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!

I have no idea re the 'construction' of the MC - whether it was threaded or not.
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Thanks for the reply. To have two M/C,s fail on the same bike is alarming. Did you investigate the failure mode? The hydraulic system on these bikes is very simple, for the M/C to fail, it (the leak) is either the piston seal or the sleeve seal (or what ever compound was used to seal the sleeve to the M/C body) Do you still have the failed M/C ? It would be interesting to find out why it failed.
I wonder if it was a brake fluid incompatibility that dissolved the sealing compound used?
 
YING said:
Thanks Nigel,
Are they powder coated along with your other fork pieces?
Mike
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What ??

NO !!!

Bare alloy, made ‘satin’ with Scotchbrite. Like the rest of the bike, there’s zero polished alloy left on the bike.

I prefer the non polished look. And I prefer the lack of polishing. Life’s too short !!

IMG_8736.jpeg
 
I installed the single Norvil floating disc and AP caliper on my MKIII. I retained the stock master cylinder mostly because of the switch-gear on it. It has a good feel and lots of power. I have stronger than average hands so my subjective opinion may be off a little.

The installation was a bit tedious because I had to use the bolts to draw the disc onto the hub. It was that tight. It'll take a puller to get it off. The bracket is not tapped for bolts and uses nuts on the backside. Being a MKIII it mounts on the left ahead of the slider. It was supplied with your choice of length of braided stainless hose that comes right from the MC. It looked sloppy. So, I used the factory hoses and the hard line from the slider to the caliper. I looks much neater but (and there's always a but to these projects, eh?) to bleed the AP caliper it must be off the bike so you can turn it round to get the bleed valve on top. With the hard line you can't do that. I did get it bled without turning the whole bike upside down but it was a chore and I don't want to do it again soon.

All this leads up to the difficulty of getting the front wheel off. The caliper has to be removed to do that unless you can hang the front wheel over a pit or off the end of the lift. Of course if I remove the caliper then I have to re-bleed it. So I would like to mount the caliper behind the slider, which might require a pre 75 slider and mounting the caliper on the right side, or if someone makes a left-hand slider with the caliper mount behind. Then the front wheel could be removed with no trouble.

I would guess that Colorado Norton had this all worked out ahead of time when they designed their kit. One pays a bit more for the engineering and I think it's worth it. Other kits may also be worked out just as well but i haven't investigated.
 
"Do you still have the failed M/C ? It would be interesting to find out why it failed.
I wonder if it was a brake fluid incompatibility that dissolved the sealing compound used?"

No, I didn't keep the MC, I tossed it in the trash can. There was no leakage in the system and the MC was still full of fluid (DOT 4) and it had worked fine for several months before the failure.
 
Thomasa said:
I installed the single Norvil floating disc and AP caliper on my MKIII. I retained the stock master cylinder mostly because of the switch-gear on it. It has a good feel and lots of power. I have stronger than average hands so my subjective opinion may be off a little.

The installation was a bit tedious because I had to use the bolts to draw the disc onto the hub. It was that tight. It'll take a puller to get it off. The bracket is not tapped for bolts and uses nuts on the backside. Being a MKIII it mounts on the left ahead of the slider. It was supplied with your choice of length of braided stainless hose that comes right from the MC. It looked sloppy. So, I used the factory hoses and the hard line from the slider to the caliper. I looks much neater but (and there's always a but to these projects, eh?) to bleed the AP caliper it must be off the bike so you can turn it round to get the bleed valve on top. With the hard line you can't do that. I did get it bled without turning the whole bike upside down but it was a chore and I don't want to do it again soon.

All this leads up to the difficulty of getting the front wheel off. The caliper has to be removed to do that unless you can hang the front wheel over a pit or off the end of the lift. Of course if I remove the caliper then I have to re-bleed it. So I would like to mount the caliper behind the slider, which might require a pre 75 slider and mounting the caliper on the right side, or if someone makes a left-hand slider with the caliper mount behind. Then the front wheel could be removed with no trouble.

I would guess that Colorado Norton had this all worked out ahead of time when they designed their kit. One pays a bit more for the engineering and I think it's worth it. Other kits may also be worked out just as well but i haven't investigated.
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I switched the Mk3 sliders around so that the Madass caliper is behind and on the right.
The Nissan MC went onto the MK3 switchgear setup with a bit of fiddling.
I believe it fits the onto the earlier switchgear directly, no fiddling.

With this setup, the wheel comes off with the caliper in place, same as before.

Glen
20240501_100925.jpg
 
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Thinking about this a bit more I recall that the Madass brake came with its special slider, made for the right side. I used that and switched the existing right hand slider over to the left side, just to tidy things up on that left side.
Brakes, old or new
 
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Having put RGM rear brake shoes in they where better , but purely by accident I put a new brake cable on making it shorter to get rid of the hoop , my rear brake is now one of the best I have ever had
 

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worntorn said:
Thinking about this a bit more I recall that the Madass brake came with its special slider, made for the right side. I used that and switched the existing right hand slider over to the left side, just to tidy things up on that left side.View attachment 114125
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Then, I suppose you just reversed the wheel and axle to match the slider? Oh, and bend the fender stay?
 
Yes, reversed both.
The Brake Kit came with a special fender stay made for the job.
Not bad for $650 US all in. The price might be higher now.

Glen
 
Fast Eddie said:
What ??

NO !!!

Bare alloy, made ‘satin’ with Scotchbrite. Like the rest of the bike, there’s zero polished alloy left on the bike.

I prefer the non polished look. And I prefer the lack of polishing. Life’s too short !!

View attachment 114116
Click to expand...
Nigel,
Sorry,my mistake on viewing the picture.
Mike
 
worntorn said:
Yes, reversed both.
The Brake Kit came with a special fender stay made for the job.
Not bad for $650 US all in. The price might be higher now.

Glen
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Glen,

I think that all of Dons later kits come with an adapter that bolts onto the factory slider. I have one of these that works great and you get a lot for your money.
Mike
 

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In a tight spot on a motorcycle I want to stop yesterday.

I will choose upgrading to modern day technology, materials and applications every time over a braking system developed 50 years ago...to me that is simple common sense.
 
We are lucky with the Commandos in that they came stock with a Front disc brake thru quite a lot of the production.
That way it doesn't make the bike look strange to have a different, much better disc brake fitted.

I've seen disc brakes fitted to otherwise standard Vincent twins. No matter how neatly the conversion is done it always looks godawful on a Vincent.
Fortunately the stock Vincent drum brake is a twin drum setup that can be made to work extremely well.

Glen
 
I just brought the Don Pender brake kit it comes complete. I was tossing up about fitting one or going the old school disc with 13mm master on the 1972 roadster. Then I thought it’s only bolt on easy to change back to stock disc and master. Can’t have to much brake in modern traffic.​
 
In all I have had about 4 crashes while racing due to drum brakes. The thought of them makes me feel sick. When you are coming down from high speed, the front brake needs to be there strong and reliable - no ifs, buts or maybees.
My mate has a reasonable drum front brake on his Triton. It is two 8 inch BSA drums back to back with a spacer in the middle. Two shoes are trailing.
Something which is 'quite alright' about a Vincent, probably is not. Some bikes are very fast and safe, but only when ridden in a straight line.
 
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I too have the Don Pender brake upgrade, it was a very easy install and works great, especially after replacing the pads with EBC 2H pads, and I really like that the M/C assembly bolts straight up to OEM switch gear (I'm not even sure how he managed that!). I don't notice any pulling to one side, but I'm sure it would be a different story with worn slider bushes. I also like that the brake line has an attachment to the fender bracket, the CNW brake line kinda flaps in the wind and looks a bit untidy.

Having said that, on my next build I'd like to use something a little more period, basically the Lockhead AP racing caliper. There doesn't seem to be an aesthetically pleasing adapter plate to mount it to the standard fork slider (as many people have mentioned the slots in the RGM plate just don't look right), so I think the production racer sliders would be the right way to go. Fast Eddie's (Nigel?) dual disk setup looks fantastic.

But is a dual disk overkill?. "Thomasa" mentioned that he was happy with the stopping power of a single AP caliper, can anyone else comment on it's effectiveness? Where does it lie between the original caliper and a Pender or CNW setup?

One downside of the dual AP caliper setup (apart from cost!) would seem to be the added unsprung weight. Can anyone comment on how noticeable that is?

A question for Nigel or anyone else: with the dual AP caliper setup, what M/C are you using?. From what I gather from a brief search, the correct M/C piston diameter should be about 5/8". Although there seems to be quite a bit of differing opinions on this.

One final question: I know there is a great deal of legal animosity between AN and Norvil, but are they both selling the exact same prod racer slider? I can't imagine that they each have separate manufacturers!
 
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