Hitchcocks Forum

My front drum brake is causing a problem. Rotated forward it binds - rotate backwards it runs free. The details of the brake are:- newish brake linings (has worked well with these linings), fixed pivot single leading shoe. The brake plate is a rigid casting, there is no provision for adjusting pivot. Brake drum is clean and free of dust. I have taken great care to tighten everything to avoid distorting the brake plate. It sometimes work well but now having had to remove it this problem started. Have tried tightening anchor bolt whilst holding brake on hard. The anchor bolt is not connected to the brake pivot. Any ideas please ?

What sort of bike is it? I had that issue when I set up the front brake on my Bitsa. It was solved by reversing the direction of the cable pull. I initially had it pulling from the front which had the effect of servo-ing the brake in a very unpredictable manner particularly when the brake had been unused for a while. I reversed it so it pulled from behind the forks and it was sorted. It still grabs when rolling backwards though.

Interesting comment. It is a generic small Honda drum brake used on a Bantam fork, parked next to my Enfields, just to keep it on topic.