Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The battle of the brake bits

The next step in the process was to push on with the tear down, reducing a proud if shabby bike to a heap of components, which could then be dispatched for refurbishment, disgarded or replaced as needed.

So, to work on the brakes.

Peugeots of the period were equipped with Mafac racers. These were a French product, centre pull and alloy. Opinions vary radically as to their effectiveness. For every die-hard there is a big proponent of "bin em and start again". The "bin em" method could lead to a better stopping ride, but has its own issues. For reasons known only to themselves, Peugeot chose to make the mounting bolt and corresponding hole for the front brake, horizontal, the rear vertical. This tends to limit the options when it comes to replacements. Replacements would also need to be quite long reach.


However, until I could remove them, all discussion of new brakes was a bit speculative. Out came the spanner,s and let's look at the cabling and see what we need to work with.  

So, the Beast is turned upside down, the old quick releases released, and away we go.

The brakes were attached with a single bolt, big slug of WD-40, quick twirl with the spanners, and off came the bolts. The levers force is transfered to the brakes through a cross wire, running from the type of one side of the brake to the other. There is a pretty little piece of alloy that hooks under the cross wire. Dislodge the top end of the cable from the levers, and plenty of slack appears, quick twist and the cross wires are released. Bit of hard core wiggling of the brakes and they are free as well.



Decision time, keep or bin. In the end, rightly or wrongly, I have kept them as part of the originality strategy. Hopefully, new rims and modern brake pad compounds will increase their efficiency, as will new cables. As I wrote in a previous post, there is little or no likelihood of me screaming down Ventoux or tackling the Strade Bianche on the Beast. So, hopefully within the parameters of this being a cruiser, we should be all good!





The next step was to strip off the old pads, partially disassemble the Mafacs and give them a clean. I can't remember which forum it was on, but I came across a reference somewhere to this stuff called Mothers Polish.(Please don't think of this as a product placement!)  Its a cream which you wipe on to Alloy, Chrome or Steel and then buff up with a soft cloth. Ten minutes work and you have the component you see above. 

I managed to source some new pad blocks from Velo Orange which will hopefully fit the existing shoes, but might have to resort to hacking down some brake cables to replace the cross wires. Replacement wires seem somewhat scarce.

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