Cheap Brake Discs

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brf1957

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Hi, has anyone had any experience of the brake discs that halkshaws are selling on ebay (made in india) seems like a good price would love to here from anyone using these before i buy item no. 260903680101 Regards Brian
 
I have a nice real one for sale. Genuine part. Not from India or wherever.
 
I don't have any experience with these, and not all parts out of India are of low quality, but plenty are and on such a critical item i would rather get the real McCoy and be sure.
Just my opinion but where possible (with older singles its more difficult) i like to support real retailers (often via websites) supplying items of known quality. If we don't support them we will ultimatley be reduced to only faceless online sellers of the cheap copy parts at which time my bikes will be reduced to polishers, assuming i am around long enough to wear them out.
Apologies for the rant, getting older and grumpier by the day. :roll:
 
These brake discs were offered to Andover Norton at a price lower than what we get the raw casting done for. Got a sample, looked at it, called the scrap man. Nondescript material that is weak and porous in the radii that are of critical importance to stability and strength. Reminds me of certain production racer (alias "Norvil") discs that I saw, and which locked the brake up when they got warm. This happened several times in local vintage racing until the idiots saw the light and bought their next brake disc from a reliable source.
Your life depends on your brakes but if you consider your life worthless feel free to buy any low-quality crap that is offered disguised as a Norton part. Gearbox parts come to mind, too.........
Joe Seifert
 
Joe

Race with the classic club. A friend had a warped disc & replaced it. The brake was never as good again. Later found out that the spec of the cast iron was not as originally used but at a price! The pads just did not work with the new material.
Point taken.

all the best Chris
 
Hi thanks for all replies I think my question has been answered ,by the way i have a genuine disc with the chrome coming off in places if i get it skimmed what would be the minimum safe thickness to come down to does anyone know
 
Just take off enough to remove the chrome. Do NOT have drum skimmed like an automotive shop does as leaves the machined lines in line with the friction loads which is know to greatly reduce friction/drag. Blasted or cross hatched milled is the way to remove chrome mechanically. Might be an electro/chemical way too.
 
I measured six discs I had on hand--installed on bikes or off running bikes--only one was more than a quarter-inch thick--I believe some leeway is permissible there


Tim Kraakevik
kraakevik@voyager.net
'72 Combat, '74 RH10 850
 
brf1957 said:
Hi, has anyone had any experience of the brake discs that halkshaws are selling on ebay (made in india) seems like a good price would love to here from anyone using these before i buy item no. 260903680101 Regards Brian
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This reminds me of a couple of things.

My Grand Am needed new brake rotors at 30,000 miles. While I was waiting at the shop for the work to be done a mechanic came outside for a smoke and I started talking to him. He said he did not like GM’s Chinese parts and that the steel in the brake rotors was “no good”. He also said the rotors needed replacing very often.

Another time I was talking to my brother-in-law who works for an oil-related company. He told me that they had bought some steel tubing from India but they could not get a good weld because of impurities in the steel. The company had to write off the entire shipment and sell the new tubing for scrap.

A soft rotor would wear out prematurely but one that is made out of poor steel could fracture or something like that. Even if somebody has a good experience with the product you still won’t know if the quality is consistent and the next one will be good.

If you join an owner’s club maybe you can buy a good used rotor from someone that upgrades their braking system.
 
Buy a Miles front disc..they look good, are CNC machined and work. I can send you his small catalogue as an attachment. He does not have a web site.

Robin
 
Hi ,thanks for all advice ,I think my next move is going to enquire locally about getting chrome removed from old disc Brian
 
FWIW-As an update to that thread, Old Britts has collected up some old rotors and have had them ground and drilled. They are in stock and will accept your rotor as a core. I am not sure this does our original poster much good considering he is in Scotland.

What I really want to know from the previous thread is how does the nickel plating work out for a friction surface.

Russ
 
Original brake discs were chromed for the showroom and practically useless, especially in the wet. When Commandos were new we took the chrome off and had a brake after that (of sorts- average for the times). Today's Andover Norton brake discs are coated with the stuff automobile manufacturers use, so where the pads wear this goes off imnmediately and you got a brake.
I found drilling the discs useless when we did it in the 1970s, never tried it again bar on our race bike (Production Racer double disc setup), there primarily for weight reasons. On production brakes it gave us no more braking, not even in the wet, but a lot more wear on the pads, even though the bores were deburred. Wouldn't do it again.
Joe Seifert
 
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