Hitchcocks Forum

While I have the front wheel off to address the wayward speedo drive I plan to sort the woeful front brake. The OEM linings appear to only be contacting the drum via a few glazed high spots. Is it worth putting in the time with the chalk and emery cloth to rectify or should the first action be to procure our hosts replacement shoes with superior non-asbestos linings bonded in England? Normally a no-brainer but the super-duper shoes are not cheap! Not on top of a speedo drive and cable anyway (and I suppose that I should also replace the sorry brake cable; it won't be helping matters)!

That sounds like a cheap & quick turn round reline by a cleckheaton outfit that advertises in the classic mags
There is a way of cutting the lining sticking 80 grit paper to the drum & rotating against a partially applied brake. I have not tried it yet but will have to do so this winter so that I might have a rear brake that works properly. No prizes for guessing who did the linings and all because I was under a serious time constraint. I would have been better using the existing linings until I could get the proper job from Hitchcock, I have learned another lesson.

it's no use putting the better linings in if the drum is not round, put it on a lathe(the complete wheel) a make i round first.
had to take 3 tenth of a millimeter of mine, at the first pass it was only touching 15% of the surface which is used for braking.
after three passes it was round.

since then, its a very good brake.

Heve you done the modification to ensure both shoes hit the drum at the same time? The details can be found on here and it makes a big difference.

The modification - drilling of the top trunnion - was already done. The question is whether there is any benefit in the 'new' linings vs persevering with the OEM (they have an 03 date code on an 04 bike)shoes all things being equal as far as round hubs go?

Yes, change the linings, improved mine greatly

I can't see why you would want to change the shoes the Indian ones will have asbestos in them and we all know asbestos works best

TLS front needs lots of patient adjusting to work properly. It's not quite as simple as Mr H suggests though his tech note is very good.
Back brake needs dismantling and the floating cam made to float. They paint over them in the factory so a lot of them are effectively single shoe brakes. I even found on mine it was the trailing shoe that was working.
An hours work turned a lousy rear brake into one which locks up if I'm not careful.

It is possible to get the TLS working really well, but I always found that it needed quite a lot of maintenance to keep it that way. I fitted a disc, which works 100%, 100% of the time. Not as pukka as the TLS of course!

Thanks for all comments. I'm going to set up what I have as best I can and see if there is any difference before considering new shoes/linings.