Hitchcocks Forum

Much as I love my Bullet I do feel the rear drum brake is a bit 'weedy'.

Does anyone know of any improvements that can be made to improve its effectiveness?

Rich I have heard if you slacken the 2 small nuts on the backplate, then apply brake firmly and while holding it on nipup the nuts. Have tried this on my 94 bullet but have not road tested it yet, also check that the brake linings have the ends chamfered.

Hi rich the answer is yes it can be improved.on the back plate you will find two small nuts either side of the brake leaver.generally these are well covered in black paint,and the nuts are over tight.clean of the paint do not over tighten the nuts the actuation arm needs to float so the brake shoes can align.I have a 350 bullet and have done this simple mod and the rear brake is very good.

There is a video on youtube that shows you how to adjust the rear brake to fix your problem. I adjusted my rear brake to how this video showed and I now have a brilliant back brake.
If you google in upper case letters this,"ROYAL ENFIELD REAR BRAKE MODS YOUTUBE", then the youtube video will open at the right video and you can adjust your back brakes properly.

Hi Rich, 'Not sure what year model you have, [mine's a 4 year old u.c.e Electra G5 owned from new] but I would think twice before doing this so called 'mod'! R.E. themselves don't recommend it, nor do clubs/users groups in both the U.S. and Australia. It's believed that there is a possibility that it could cause the brake to lock on, seizing the wheel. Not funny on a busy road ... or anyware!!
IMHO I would say forget about having a 'lose' sliding cam on the brake plate, however good others say it is - and If you are not a member, join the U.K. R.E. Owners Club. They will have load of info. on line as to correctly setting up the Bullet rear brake - there is an important correct sequence of tightening three nuts up with the brake fully on.You can also find out on line just why the brake has a sliding cam in the first place, it certainly wasn't meant to be left floating on the back druml!
I don't know the age of your bike but R.E. started fitting a longer brake arm, [some 20/22mm longer] from about 2014 or '15 onwards. Mine missed out but our hosts sell them and they are in their catalogue.
20 odd mm doesn't sound much but although I've always done the plate tightening correctly, fitting this new arm recently simply transformed the brake!!
Sorry guys, 'didn't mean to 'write a book', preach or tell anybody 'how to suck eggs' but it's safety here that's being talked about.......
Cheers, R

I don't know about the Indian bikes, but on the Redditch built bikes there are two bolts through the mounting pivot which are threaded into the brake plate with two lock nuts on the inside you leave the bolts loose enough to allow the brake to self centre then use the lock nuts to hold them, this is how the brake was designed and the manual tells you how to do it.

Sorry that should read, threaded into the mounting pivot, not the brake plate, must be too early in the morning.

As mentioned by others - slackening the nuts on the outside does not loosen the brake pivot mounting, the outside nuts are just locking nuts. On my Electra X I had the brake disassembled cleaned all the paint off, re-assembled so the pivot point could just move (lube by a very small amount of silicon grease, literally wipe on wipe off) and there was a big improvement in the rear brake efficiency. It worked for me.

Round 1 - http://www.hitchcocksmotorcycles.com/fo ... post_88726

Google ROYAL ENFIELD REAR BRAKE MODS YOUTUBE and your back brake problems will all be fixed. People that say that this is no good have never tried it. This is how the Redditch factory
meant the brake to work. Locking everything up so there is no proper movement is an Indian idea and not a very good one either.