Dog leg front brake lever

Hi Steve, long thread on this site (Technical section) about improving brakes, RGM Can re-sleeve your master cylinder for ~£90 +VATto maintain standard lever & fix the root cause; or you could get atennis ball and squash it for 10 minutes a day untilyour fingers strengthen

Mike

The older I get, the better I was...

In the interest of safety I wouldn't persevere with the standard Commando front brake, the minimum it needs is a smaller diameter master cylinder and these are easily available at any jap bike breaker, Triumph ones will fit if you need to fly the flag but they are probably from Japan anyway.

There were two different front brake levers on 850 Commandos. The one you describe that's difficult to reachand without dog legis the early type fitted to the Mk 1A (which I've got) and I think maybealso the Mk 2A but not sure. The Mk 3 (which I've also got)has the dog leg lever.

The problem is that they are not interchangeable unless youhave the complete handlebar Lockheed master cylinder and switchconsolemounting for each type of lever. Both levers / master cylindersbolt onto a switch / mirror console which are different in each case.

I was able to buy a new early type straight lever (just the lever)from Carl Rosner a year ago and I would guess the dog leg lever is also available being from the later bike , but not sure about availability ofthe Lockheedmaster cylinder and Mk 3 switch / mirror console which you will need toconvert to dog leg lever. Sparx are doing the Mk 3 switch console but the Mk 3 dog leg lever Lockheed master cylinder could be a problem.

Previously wrote:

In the interest of safety I wouldn't persevere with the standard Commando front brake, the minimum it needs is a smaller diameter master cylinder and these are easily available at any jap bike breaker, Triumph ones will fit if you need to fly the flag but they are probably from Japan anyway.

While on the subject of brakes, RGM are selling a Triumph master cylinder (997027M) which has a 13mm bore which they say saves re sleeving the original Norton Master cylinder. Has anyone tried this arrangement with the standard Norton caliper and a stainless braided hose? willy macPosts: 63Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2009 4:19 pmLocation: St Andrews Scotland