8" front brake

Hi Tom,

Assuming that your front brake isn't out of round, try a longer brake lever, there is one on offer from Norvil.

If nothing else it will reduce your braking effort, I suggest keeping tabs on Les as he explores the land of improved braking from old drum brakes.

I know I am, as the front brake on my model 19s is also puny in the whoa department.

regards,

Albert

P.S. If you do the experiment you hint at, please post your findings, thank you.

Hi Tom. I have had this fact brought to my attention too. The 1/32"enlargement merely 0.8mm, quite a tiny amount really, so it is not a drastic modification. You have to remember that the alloy face plate sits inside a recess on the alloy hub so it cannot be any larger really, even if a bigger sideways shift could be necessary to get well worn shoes to simultaneously make contact with the drum.

The 8 inch drum can work very well, but Iâve also known them to be very poor. To start with, I would strip the whole brake down. If very dusty get a bucket of hot water soapy water to dunk the entire plate in (with shoes). This nullifies the dust problem and will clean up the plate a bit. Strip the entire plate down. Remove the cam and the removable pivot spindle too. Clean everything up immaculately, I would use a rotary wire brush to burnish the cam spindle the cam surface and the pivot spindles. You should drill the hole with a bench drill as to ensure perfect centralization â?I would not recommend it done with a hand held drill and then get brake plate cleaned up too.

Make sure that after burnishing, the cam spindle it is a nice free rotating fit in its bush and also check the pivot holes of the shoes on the burnished pivot spindles are also a nice free rotating fit.

Check the shoe pressure end plates to make sure they have not become indented or worn. These should be surfaced to a very shiny perfectly flat finish by filing and surfacing with emery or wet and dry to get them to a near shiny perfect flat surface.

Using HMP or copper grease on all moving surfaces, i.e.: spindles, bush, shoe end pressure plates, pivot holes and spindles, reassemble.

You can then utilise the new spindle clearance hole and centralize the brake plate and fully tighten the spindle nut. I would recommend you fit new shoes at this stage unless the originals show little wear. If new shoes have been fitted then you should see that the plate is very near to a concentric fit in the hub with very little offset shift. Finally lube up the brake cable thoroughly.

With everything nice and free and slippery, the cam action will have a much better chance to exert good pressure to the shoes. Unfortunately at this point the brake might still not perform that marvelously, as the linings will have to bed in. Just use the brake normally and donât overdue the pressure at this stage. After a weeks use, I would then recentralize the brake. This, you might think, is unnecessary as the shoes have now bedded in, but as my 7â post shows, you want to maintain, an exact simultaneous drum contact point for both shoes all the time and with the fixed mechanical cam this will become spoilt as the leading shoe inevitably wears down more quickly, which is what the recentralizing will achieve.

The 1/32â hole enlargement might cope for quite a time with a few more repeated recentralizing jobs though, but needs monitoring. This can be done by applying the brake hard with the spindle removed to view the brake plate offset movement. If the spindle can still be slid in with the brake applied, then you have sufficient clearance. To avoid running out of clearance at a later stage of wear on the linings, I would recommend swapping over the shoes from one side to the other at some point in time. This will have the benefit of extending the pairs service life too and negate the need to further enlarge the spindle brake plate hole. You will need to bed in the brakes again and recentralize as before. All quick easy work though.

Let us all know how you get on. Iâm confident you will get a decent improvement.

Les

CORRECTION: "I would not recommend it done with a hand held drill and then USING THE HOT SOAPY WATER GET THE BRAKE DRUM CLEANED UP TOO"...

Les

Previously wrote:

I have a slimline ES2 of 1961 vintage. It is my first ever Norton and though delighted with this bike, there is one thing about it that is a great disappointment. The front brake. It's awful. My 350 AJS with a 7" front brake has far greater stopping power and inspires a lot more confidence.

I have read some threads on this site about mods to the earlier 7" brake, one of which was the enlargement of the main spindle hole to allow better centralisation of the brake plate.

I have two maintenance manuals for my bike, one from 1962 and one from 1967. The later manual states in Section 98, 'Brake Adjustment, Front: "On models before 1964 enlargen spindle holein brake plate by 1/32" to centralise". This seems to be an admission by Norton that there wasa problem with design or manufacturing tolerances that precluded correct centralisation of brake shoes to brake drum.

My question is this: Has anyone made this mod and noticed any improvement in brake performance?

I've just bought a complete spare brake plate assembly on e-Bay to experiment with so any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Tom

Hi Tom,

I have a 1961 Navigator which may well have the same brake. I found the brake was prettyawfuland during investigation I discovered that by loosening the spindle it worked well. I then had the spindle hole enlarged by anaggers(I think this is close to 0.8mm) and the inner and outer faces trued up as they were a bit scuffed. Then pull the brake on hard beforetightening and it now seems as good as I would expect.

Regards

Tony

Hello All,

If using a rotary wire wheel on the brake cam spindles, try to get the finest or softest wire brush for this, some of the wire wheels available can almost double as grinding wheels they're so coarse. I use a gunsmith's wire wheel for this sort of thing, as it was intended for imparting a finely brushed finish to the metal prior to bluing. It is about 4" in diameter and I put it in the chuck of my drill press set at its highest speed.

At the risk of sounding nannyish, be sure to wear eye protection as the fine wires can fly with appalling speed, and keep fingers clear of the spinning wire brush, it will remove skin instantly!

Regards,

Albert

Hi.

My ES2's front brake is (now) bloody good for a classic! A few things to add to the advice already given.

Opening up the spindle hole so the brake plate can centralise certainly does help but as Les said - don't overdo it -otherwise the plate will abraid the edge of the hub and fill your drum with alloy shavings - I speak from experience!!!

Brake shoes - RGM does exchange shoes with high friction linings which I can thoroughly recommend - far, far better than the 'pattern' shoes that are usually on offer. Incidentally AM4 linings (if stillavailable)I wouldn't recommend after mine locked up at low speedin the wet throwing me and my ES2 down the road.

Brake cable - Cut ahole in the corner of a small plastic bag just big enough to pass the end of the cable through. Tie ittight just below the end of the cable, hang it up and spray some chain lube in (the sort that's really runny at first) about 5-10ml. When it starts to drip out, lift the other end of the cable up and hang it level with the bag end and leave overnight. Make sure that the adjuster on the brake plate lines up with the end of the brake lever. Apply the brake as hard as you can (whilst stationary) if there is any notchiness in its operation go through it all again. Cable operationmust be totally smooth.

Front brake lever - this should measure 7/8" between the centre of the pivot and the nipple (as should your clutch lever if an AMC gearbox is fitted). This has the same effect as a longer lever at the hub end and makes a big difference. The original brake levers of this type are hard to find. They are the same dimensions as the 1" type but the nipple locating hole is noticeably further in from the front edge of the blade. A 7/8" blade of a similar type - though slightly smaller in dimensions than the original -is available from http://www.norbsa02.freeuk.com/goffyhandlebarlevers.htmIncidentally, I would think that a combination of this lever and a longer lever at the hub end would result in too much travel resulting in the handlebar lever hitting the bars.

Also make sure that the lever pivot isn't worn - re-bush if necessary. The bushes in the brake plate are easy to replace and the cam spindle should be checked for wear. The brakeplate lever is reversable - try flipping it over and fitting it to give a better angle when the brake is applied - ideally ~90 degrees to the shoes when fully applied.

Finally, once all this is done,check that the lever doesn't foul the bars,throttle body or handlebar-end mirror - it's surprising how much further back the lever will travel when the brake warms up with the above mods.

Cheers.

Ian.

When I first bought the bike, the front brake on my1965 Atlas was a single leading shoe and next to useless.

I sent if off to a reputable drum/wheel specialist who skimmed theinner drumand them machined a set of linings to exactly match the circumference of the drum. On refitting to my bike I was just stunnedby the massive improvment. It was actually possible to squeal the front tyre in the dry but keep full control on wet roads. It would even outbrake a Commando with a 2LS.

The total cost was just over twice the price for a set of shoes from most suppliers but I did have to deliver and collect the wheel and brake plate.

It was suggested to me that every 1000 miles I clean out the drum of dust and grit (the main killer of brakes) and recentralize the brake hub as one shoe always wore slightly faster than the other.This was good advice and worked.

I was also informed thatit was not a good idea to skim the Norton full width hubs more than once otherwise the steel insertmight become too thin and distort under heavy braking. Very worn drums tend to have a ridge on the plate side which can make refittinga plate sporting new linings a bit of a challenge. Also you may have to shim the shoes (a lot) at the cam end to take up any slack.

Final thoughts - some Norton brake levers have 7/8" cable nipple to fulcrum distances and others have 1". This can make a big difference to thelever force needed tomake the whole set-up work effectively. Also the brake plate levers come in two sizes (lengths), which affects lever forcesplus some people fit them incorrectly (inverted) and obviously want to commit suicide.

If the spindle hole in the brake plate is made too large then you can end up with a nasty grating sounds as it gets pulled to one side and then tries to grind away the hub flange.