Hitchcocks Forum

Beware tinkering! Also if something is wrong with your brakes, stop and sort it out right away.

Having fitted overall longer and longer travel shocks, it changes the interaction between the movement of the swingarm and the brake rod. If you have them adjusted too tightly, at extreme compression, it will tend to apply the brake. I was aware of this happening but had decided I'd wait until I got home to sort it out. Being so pleased about it passing its MOT, I was getting a little over-exuberant and jumped it off a fairly high kerb with a heavy-ish landing. This fully compressed the suspension and applied the rear brake.

It turns out the grip on heidenau trials tyres at 5mph under full compression is greater than both the tensile strength of a 7/16" brake pivot bolt and the swingarm sideplates!

New pivot ordered. New brake rod being fabricated, swingarm hammered flat again with a smiths hammer and a heavy steel block.

blimey!

Glad you are o.k
Is your chain tension too tight as well for the travel of your rear suspension?
Having said that, i have argued with a MOT tester about my chain tension being slack, bike was on centre stand.....

Kentish Man wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 20, 2021 6:23 pm

Glad you are o.k
Is your chain tension too tight as well for the travel of your rear suspension?
Having said that, i have argued with a MOT tester about my chain tension being slack, bike was on centre stand.....

There has been much ado with rollers to keep the chain tension within acceptable limits through the whole travel. That picture has the suspension fully unloaded so that's as slack as it gets.

Blimey, with your brake arm in that position, you could run a cable from it over your left shoulder and pull it with your left hand!

Hi, you'll probably find the shoe pivot bolts were not tight and the brake has locked on and torn the brakeplate loose. Vince