NO POINT OF REFERENCE

I wasn’t expecting the brakes to be good by modern standards, but the front brake was particularly dire. I attempted to address this with over-length actuator arms in stainless steel from Mutz Nutz. These helped a bit, but not as much as I would have liked.

In another demonstration of how not to go about a rebuild, I finally got around to getting the brake drums skimmed and the brakes relined. Fortunately I found Leicester Wheel and Brake Restorations. Rob Coley had the wherewithal to take the complete, newly rebuilt wheel and skim the drum. He pointed out that the conical hub wheels suffer from a problem where the brake drums wear unevenly, ironically causing them to become conical. This means that you have to apply a lot of force to the brake lever to get the shoes to contact the drum properly.

With the brake drum skimmed true and new linings machined to match, I re-fitted the front wheel. Once on the bike the front brake was locked on solid, even with the cable adjustment backed right off. I phoned Rob, he expressed surprise that there was a problem but said he would skim the linings a little more. I duly refitted the reskimmed brake shoes and got the same result. Rob was very reluctant to machine more off the linings for safety reasons, and suggested that I checked