Hitchcocks Forum

Hey, I was just looking for some advice... on the way home today I hit a pothole which sheared the pivot pin in my rear brake assembly, wrenching it from the swingarm and jamming on the rear brakes. This happened right outside the garage so I managed to borrow a couple of spanners and slacken off the rear brake so I could get home with just the front which wasn't too hairy. I have taken off the back wheel and the only damage really is a sheared shoe pivot, a bent break cover plate and the slot on the swing arm has been mangled slightly when it was wrenched. My questions really are.... 1. Why has this happened? A few bumps on the way home hit me pretty hard, is there something I should check with regards to suspension? 2. Undoubtedly our hosts stock these parts but their location is not obvious, whats the best option in terms of available replacements? If it were you what checks would you deem necessary to eliminate the concern for danger? Sorry if thats all a little vague but advice from this forum has proved invaluable in the past and I'm interested to know if it's something that has happened to others. God damn potholes

I haven't had this happen personally but have heard of this happening before:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/roy ... sage/72419
You will see that on reassembly (and after replacing a broken shoe!) the author had trouble with the brake grabbing and in later posts he describes arcing the shoes to alleviate this. Other contributors to the forum suggest that he might have been better off just centralizing the shoes.

PS Sometimes these bikes scare me, but not as much as the possibility of the drive shaft breaking and seizing on my previous BMW. That didn't happen to me personally either (thank goodness!).

Thanks that post describes the issue exactly, I had a grabbing problem before but did the centralisation mod a week a go and its be substantially smoother. I dont know if it's connected or just coincidence. Maybe I didn't tighten the locking bolt sufficiently and it worked lose until I hit something.