Front Brake Mod's

Ummh!

EER! Clever Clogs, this is before I have put them, (the brakes that is), together and the cooling air coming in will make them more effective, plus i have only added a reasonable sized air scoop for "road" use as I am not on a Race track, yet!

Have you done my radiator frame and combined oil cooler rack yet? The little job I gave you to do before TT practice week?

How dare you criticise my policy of restoration, my mate Anna!

I will upload a photo presently in the week!

Cheers

John H

Previously john_hall1 wrote:

Ummh!

EER! Clever Clogs, this is before I have put them, (the brakes that is), together and the cooling air coming in will make them more effective, plus i have only added a reasonable sized air scoop for "road" use as I am not on a Race track, yet!

Have you done my radiator frame and combined oil cooler rack yet? The little job I gave you to do before TT practice week?

How dare you criticise my policy of restoration, my mate Anna!

I will upload a photo presently in the week!

Cheers

John H

Just teasing mate, I know how busy you have been!

Cheers

John H

Hi Bob,

A bit of both! The Norton Special will have a modified 930cc Hillman Imp engine fitted, I want it to go but I also want it to stop and thinking if heat causes fade then eliminating heat will help the brakes work more efficiently too!

It's a modest scoop, I wanted to try and make the brake as good as possible, but the pre-1955 brake plate I have, had been used previously in a "99" racing special and was already pre drilled, so I wanted to make the drilling less unsightly and more effective, if you look closely at the photo you can see it looks like a previous scoop was fitted possibly by Araldite or some such stuff!

For me it's function first and then form, I studied Biology and Ecology, the Natural Sciences, when I was younger and was interested in how nature has designed living creatures, but essentially nature's mechanism is always function followed by beautifully designed forms!

I was interested in adapting designing a twin-leading shoe set up, I have both types of brake plate but consider the earlier Birmal type, though more old fashioned to be a superior casting to the strange form of the internally fitting later examples ( are they/were they Italian made?)!

On a American web page featuring a "Bath-tubbed" Norton 650 deluxe, his later brake plate has been adapted to a "Twin Leading shoe", in which it says it's a simple adaptation! But I can't find out anything about it any where!

I wondered why no-one has redesigned a Four brake Twin Single-leading shoe outfit that the Vincent used, apparently they are quite good!

They used to say it was the second emergency pull in quick succession to the first that caused fade to be lethal with air holes both kind of matched then this should help to stop this happening! I could get all anal-li-retentive and work out "Hole" area at the front and rear of the brake plate, and if my head clicks into this mode I may do that but I am not sure whether a slight back pressure may help with cooling?

I intend to ride my creation long distance and therefore require it to function as effectively as it can, across the Alps is funnily one of my ambitions!

Hope this help explain my raison d'etre, the bike will evolve rather than be statically stuck in some window of the past, forever, as it was birthed into the mechanical world!

Cheers

John H

Yet again I cannot post an image as it's 1012 bytes and not the 1000 byte limit! Why doesn't someone just make it a Megabyte which is 1012 bytes!

Maybe managed to get an image on...

Cheers

John

Also:

Brake plate been cleaned and polished since this initial state of disrepair!

Cheers

John

Hi, Mike,

it is a moderate sized scoop, but funnily enough what made me think the part was even more suitable was that there was two small holes in the back of the casing, probably there for electrical wires, but I thought they may act as water bleed holes!

If you were clever with an air-flow meter, I suppose someone could experiment with the best design of Air scoop, but if the Air scoop part is the coolest part then perhaps from a condensation point the water would be more liable to stick around in a scoop and bleed away from my two tiny holes than enter the brakes proper, (this may be wishful thinking), but until I try it I will not know, the effectiveness and because i haven't tried the original set up I will not know how much more effective it is, if any!

I had a BSA for 10 years with the 1970 TLS brake set-up on it and it never let me down, the problem now is finding mesh to suit like the BSA mesh sized set-up! According to the pundits the 1968-1970 TLS BSA Triumph set was was the best the Factories ever managed to produce!

I do not like the idea of the standard Commando set-up which needs a strengthening plate, this shouts of something being wrong in the initial design! RGM do the same set-up, but the brake plate itself is reinforced a better idea I would think, but they have run out of them at present and I think the look is too modern for what I want to achieve!

In fact my very first bike a 4 speed D10 Bantam, had quite good brakes on it too!

Being a "Special" you can explore options that other people may not and this is my beef about the Restoration movement per se, it can lead to little if any inventiveness or improvement particularly in the cycle part arena!

I am always cautious riding in the wet and always wear a substantial pair of boots. Perhap,s I should invest in a pair of hob-nailed ones to aid to stopping if anyone still makes them in our sacred Isles!

Cheers

John H