front brake

It would be worthwhile to replace the linings with proper grade ones. Many replacement lining are far too hard and pretty useless. Talk to a decent relining shop - they should be able to help.

I'm sure others can recommend who to contact. 

.. Villiers Services who do an excellent and good value job. I ask for high friction rather than fade resistance as I am not the sort of rider who rides on the brakes.

Villers +1, you want their MZ gold lining which is high friction, developed for Fork lift trucks allegedly. 

Villiers +2

I have recently had my Dommie 99’s front brake shoes relined by Villiers Services and I can now lock the front wheel (if required). The general everyday braking is much improved. The linings seem to have lots of very thin copper-coloured wires throughout the material and feel rough. They do squeal a bit if I brake very hard but in normal use they are quiet. The cost of £21 is extremely good considering how much a new pair of ‘standard’ (ineffective) brake shoes would cost.

Regards 

Tony

Tony, MZ Gold has the copper wires.

Hello George. You don't mention your front brake lever type on the handlebar in your description.  The position of the cable entry to the fulcrum point of the pivot is really important. Ensure that it is 7/8 inch. Many after-market levers are an inch or more and this reduces the mechanical advantage of the lever. Norton always fitted levers with a 7/8 inch pivot on Dominators with no adjusters at the handlebar lever. A good replacement of the shoe linings is provided by Friction Services in Burnett Business Park near Keynsham if you're in the South West.  They are quick and do a good job. One of their technicians has a 650SS so he knows your brakes well. Good luck, Howard

.. is the pivot distance on the front brake lever. Most are 1.1/16" but if you fit one with a 7/8" pivot distance you'll get more leverage without (if properly adjusted) too much travel. I have one on my ES2 and while I wouldn't say I can lock the wheel it's better than th front disc on my Honda CB250RS.

You can also buy a stainless longer drum lever , you may have to adapt the cable length. You should brush up your  soldering skills anyway as it’s often hard to buy cables that fit . 

Hi George,

   You should check the brake drum for trueness before any blame is put on the linings. Remove the brake plate assembly and re-fit the wheel in the forks, no need to tighten up the spindle tight, as long as it is in the forks. If you have a run-out dial gauge, fix it to the forks, if not any rigid piece of metal to give you an indication of any ovality. Anything more than a few thou will need skimming.

   As a point of interest, Derbyshire was the home of British motorcycle brake lining manufacturing (Ferodo).

My 1955 Model 88 came to me with 1 1/16" pivot length levers.  I had always understood that this was standard for bikes with the Norton 'horizontal' box, and that later bikes with the AMC box got 7/8" levers. 

I converted mine to 7/8" levers a long time ago.  You have to be very careful to eliminate all slack in the clutch cable.  Also, I find the clutch has a does drag a bit, so I always select neutral before stopping.

After all that waffle, I intend to try the eliptical brake cam I have on loan, and see if that makes an improvement.

What I did ages ago to improve my half-iron hub was to get the shoes relined with thick linings, have the drum lightly skimmed, and the compete brake plate turned to suit the very slightly oversize drum diameter.  It really makes a difference.

ensure the wheel spokes are properly adjusted correctly first, get drum checked to see if it is spec. for roundness, THEN get it skimmed if required. This is a potentially dangerous operation on a lathe, so only use somebody who is really competent.

As good as I've ever had, just up a bit from you if you are in the North of the county

Saftek: Industrial Friction Products

https://saftek.co.uk

I have had excellent service from Saftek. Tell them what characteristics you want as there are many grades of lining material.

Transformed my brake, they fit oversize linings and machine them to match your drum diameter. Before the brake wouldn’t stop me rolling downhill, is now a very effective brake

Brake linings are a bit like Formula 1 tyres.  Soft gives the best friction grip, but last the shortest time - hard is the opposite.  Good for anti-fade high speed, but not such good friction. F1 soft tyres seem like they're made of Plasticine!  You can mark them with your fingernails and they are good at picking up all the scrap and swarf around the track. 

If you're only doing a couple of thousand miles a year, quick-stopping power may be more important than longer life.  If you go to track meetings then harder would be better.  Tell the brake people what you want it for and they will fit the most suitable linings.  E.g. best stopping power for touring.

Getting oversized linings, having the drum(s) skimmed and then the linings skimmed to the correct (new) drum diameter should give the most efficient stopping power.

Although it sounds wrong to keep moving your shoes around , I regularly  measure the lining thickness (with a vernier caliper ) and put the thicker shoe on the leading position. After a couple of rides I get the best braking and the shoes wear equally till completely gone. My SLS brake on the 99 is better than the TLS on the Atlas. Not what you would expect.

Villiers gold, great, best drum brakes I ever had.

A Triumph owner was explaining to me last night (at a Norton Owners Club meet) that brake fade is actually due to bubbles forming in the hydraulic fluid! You might want to watch out for that...

I should look elsewhere before you try Villiers, George. Earlier this year I sent my front brake shoes (off an '55 ES2) to them and transferred the monies as requested. They received the shoes but that was the last I saw of the shoes and the money. They accepted no blame and simply ignored my requests for a return of the funds. Zero for customer service.

George

On a Dominator? Sounds a little off base! To me.

... I've used Villiers Services about half a dozen times and each time have had nothing but good service. A couple of times I delivered the shoes to them as I was in the area but always had them posted back.

I think yours was a one-off experience.

If you transferred money, kicking up a big fuss is the next step.

Hi Ian 

Maybe one-off for Villiers but 100% for me!

Jan - tried that - no joy.

And their blunt and aggressive attitude was appalling. 

But back to the thread - I changed the lining grade and it made all the difference.

George

That was enough for me.  No order for VS  till i hear that George is  sorted.

I think we'll both wait a long time, Robert, despite a "Letter before Action"!

I ended up having to buy a new set of pre-lined shoes.

George

There seem to be a number of complaints about delivery companies losing things...

Possibly so, David, but my understanding is that, in law, the deliverer is the Agent of the sender not the recipient, so it's the sender's responsibility to track down the item or pay compensation. Neither of which Villiers did, nor indeed did they return my payment. Still grumpy about it!

George

Yes, absolutely right George.  In British Law the sender effectively owns the item until it is safely delivered to the customer.  They made a contract with the courier so it is entirely their responsibility to trace or replace anything "lost in the post".  Many businesses try it on, telling the customers that they have to contact the courier to find their item.  They treat it as out of their responsibility once they have posted it.  WRONG!!

Aside from the fact that old Dominators did not have hydraulic brakes, your informant was talking nonsense!  The properties of brake linings have been know about for well over 100 years and brake fade is largely down to high temperature reducing the coefficient of friction of the linings.  Hard linings are made to resist that in racing.  Soft gives better friction grip, but is suited to touring speeds, as I implied in my earlier comment.

Bubbles in brake fluid will give braking problems due to the hygroscopic nature of the fluid.  As such small quantities of fluid are involved with bikes' hydraulic braking I would always recommend silicone fluid, which isn't hygroscopic and lasts for years.  I used to use it in my Daimler XJ6.  I also used copper/nickel brake pipes to replace the rusting steel Bundy tubing.  Beware!  Copper/nickel brake pipes are not suitable for racing machinery!

.. what relevance brake fluid has to a Domi front brake, and I think you're in a minority recommending silicone fluid. However. Brake fade is also (largely?) caused when the drum gets hot enough to expand away from the linings.

My response mentioning fluid was clearly aimed at Steve's comment.  Brake fade is NOT primarily due to the drum moving away from the linings as the brake shoes with their linings will be pushed close together by the application of the brakes.

Silicone fluid is is quite definitely much better than hygroscopic Dot 4 - there is no argument there so please do not try to make one.

Whatever fluid you use water will get in over time, in traditional fluid is will be absorbed and reduce its effectiveness. With silicone fluid the water pools in the lowest spot and if that is a steel piston it will promote corrosion, as the caliper heats up that water turns to steam reducing brake effectiveness as does an air bubble. So just because silicone fluid is long lasting does not mean you do not change the fluid regularly.

I've always followed the advice to apply the brake hard when tightening the spindle. However the spindle is a fairly exact fit in the brake plate. Is it advisable to ream out the hole in the brake plate to allow centralisation & if so by how much?

with brass mount are rather flexible.  They easily get bent, and the flat part with the lever pivot no longer touches the handlebar.  That introduces a huge amount of flex and sponginess into the braking.  Make sure your lever mount is straight, and the lever pivot hole itself is not worn.

My 1955 Dominator has the same front brake as your 1956 Model 99, and is capable of making the front tyre sing.  Last proved two weeks ago....

The brake plate is supposed to have a small clearance on the axle to allow some centering to take place. Beware of increasing it by more than a few thou as I have ruined a perfectly good plate by experimenting with increased clearance and then finding the brake would not release properly. An undersized cheap  cable that feels spongy  will give very poor braking.