SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a look

Yeah, it probably did. I was speaking from experience. Ya know what "hedgeapples" are? Those large sticky green things, I think they're a form of fruit from Mulberry or Osage Orange trees.

So here's 17-year old Fitz, blasting down a FRESHLY ASPHALTED stretch of twisties on his buddy's uncle's beautiful old fixed-peg Triumph TR6 (650cc single carb with a luggage rack on top of the gas tank) and I go honking into a tight (blind but I knew the road) right hander and get into a whole bunch of hedgeapples which completely upsets my line and I proceed to DIG A PEG into the fresh asphalt.

The Trump comes to an IMMEDIATE HALT, pivoting about the dug peg, ands SPITS me off on the low side. But the road is littered with hedgeapples which act like large sticky green marbles and I go skipping down the road on my butt grinding my wallet off the back of my jeans as I go. Flailing about wildly trying to stop. Had there been any spectators I'm sure someone would have died LAUGHING. I didn't. It took the rest of the summers' pay to fix the bike.

 

Add another XJ-er to the delaminated brakes ! (I'll rat out the event, but not his name) The guy was at the good part of a hard tail build where the engine gets running but there's no lights or front brake, so he blasts up a looong driveway to impress his friends, hits the brake which doesn't lock, it barely works. He Fred Flinstone's it to stop just before the swimming pool.

 

Re: SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a l

I know I'm going to get flamed for this. On the last basket case I brought back I noticed the rear brake was weak on the "Oh my God this thing will run" test ride around the block. This bike had been sitting in a field under a plastic tarp for at least 2 years and had not been ridden for many years before that. It had 28K showing on the clock whem we got it. I hadn't even pulled the rear wheel yet just because we had not gotten that far in the restoration process, still in the discovery phase. Anyway, when I did pull the brake apart to do the rear inspection and spline lube the arbitrative on both shoes was no longer attached to the shoe. Both pieces were intact. I was on a tight time table to get this one done so I removed brake shoes from the assembly. Wire brushed both of the aluminum shoes where the arbitrative material was supposes to be mounted. Cleaned the area with acetone and did the same thing to the delaminated arbitrative parts. I then buttered the shoes with JB wield about an 1/8 of an inch thick and positioned the parts together with spring clamps. Let them sit for 24 hours. Told the owner to owner to order new shoes but continued with the fix it test ride it process. I even took it out with the intent of seeing if I could lock up the rear brake. You could lock them up all day with no problem. Did not seem to matter how hot I got them. Anyway the parts never came in so it was delivered that way. Told him to change them asap. As far as I know they have not been changed and that was about 5K miles ago! I think I'll forward this post to him as a reminder. I do not condone this method but it did keep it going for the time being.

 

Wow,that post actually turned my stomach.I rode the last half of last season on a rear tire that was all but pooched and brakes that were never checked beyond making sure they stopped the bike.By coincidence,I booked an appointment yesterday to have those very issues fixed.

 

Re: SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a l

Another big thanks to Fitz.

The shoes on my XJ looked pretty good so I left them on even though I bought a new set. Now I'm going put the new shoes on before I take the next ride.

In MD they do a fairly thorough inspection before you can register a motorcycle - except for classic plates which is what I have on the XJ. For my Kawasaki I had to put new rotors and pads all the way around to pass inspection. I should have done the same on the Yamaha rather than just check them.

Sometimes I want to kick myself.

 

Re: SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a l

Thank again fitz for the alert. It's a good warning for all of us. I'm restoring a bike that sat for 10 years and only has 9400 miles so thanks to you this is definately on my to do list.(that list gets longer every day)

 

Re: SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a l

Upon this post i took off the rear tire to see the brakes and looky here.

And to think i just took this for a test run the other day. I didn't push any brakes real hard while on the test run. Did feel funny though.

 

Re: SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a l

Some one on this web site is clairvoyant. After getting the lean problem straight this morning It was time for an extended road test. About 120 miles today and the bike ran perfect. Made it home and parked in the drive. Came back a little while latter to push it into the garage. It pushed really hard. Put it up on the center stand and noticed the rear wheel was really stiff to turn. Pulled it off and here is what I found


NEW PARTS ON ORDER Bike only has 13k on the clock and looks great. It was always stored inside. No telling when this is gonig to happen. Regular inspection is the only way to be safe.

 

Absolutely amazing! Glad you found out about them while at you house.


Could we be looking at a mass failure of the bonding agent 25 years after installation?

Note to Chacal: Stock up on rear brake shoes because there may be a run on them

 

i think some of you guys are going to find that after putting on new brake shoes your brakes don't work as well as they did before
it takes a good while for the shoes to get seated to the drum, until then the brakes suck
you can help this along by using them for awhile and pulling the wheel again and sanding the high spots a little

 

Tito, are those cracks or corrosion discoloration? I've seen sitting water do this but I've never seen a crack.

 

It's a close to dark shot on my cell phone and i tried to doctor it up on my comp so we could see it better. But what you are looking at is what would normally be attatched to the metal brake compressor. There are lines on the inside of the pads and i'm guessing they came from trying to stop with them in this condition. The dark crack you see in the center is where the 2 brake pads meet.

 

Yeah; Robert- The pic is of his two LININGS just laying in the drum. Can you say OMG?!?

By the way, thanks to you-know-who (chacal, if you dont) I'm
ALL BETTER NOW.



I just want to say I'm REALLY GLAD that you guys are checking your brake shoes. This one rattled the crap outta me.

 

alll, I like my brake pads WITH asbestos.

no joke, In our school auditorium, we use asbestos wiring still, cuz we have a ton lying around from when the school was built, our teacher said its no big deal, lol, oh well, you gotta die sometime dont ya?

 

I believe your teacher to be correct. As I recall, the people at risk from asbestos were the people who worked with it or worked around: asbestos work in progress or old asbestos that was coming apart. The problem is breathing the dust. The normal person just isn't breathing it.

 

There are 4 kinds of asbestos, only 2 kinds cause cancer, but all 4 are now illegal to manufacture. Definitely avoid breathing the dust.

 

Whether asbestos or other nasty organic material, this is good advice.

When you take them apart, and they look like my first pic or the one posted by wingnut325, the best bet is to use a WET cleaner like SimpleGreen rather than hit it with a blast of air.

 

Took the wheels off yesterday to put new tires on. Now seeing this thread gave me an "OH ****" moment, as I rode all last season without looking into this as an issue at all.

My mindset was: "brakes work fine, great."

I'm glad I know now, I'll clean up the brake and make sure the shoes look good before I put those wheels back on.

 

Re: SAFETY ALERT Drum rear brake bike owners please take a l

Fitz, thanks again for the heads up. All well here but getting replaced anyway

 

Ok Guys! I'm convinced! Anyone who doesnt check the brakes shouldn't be riding.

Now, Does any one have a good HOW TO: on the subject? I can do most cars with my eyes closed (some might say that last set I did I had my eyes closed... but thats a longer story) But I havent yet pulled off my back tire and would really like the benefit of learning from past experiences.