Forum

[Dennis O]

Hello Norm good advice about the snail cam adjusters on the Enfields I used a centre punch to mark the correct position on the cam and painted the mark as they did not match up on both sides while aligning the wheels. One side was 1 groove out when using a straight edge plank of wood. When I have the rear wheel out I will file the grooves as you have done. Also while having the yellow paint out I marked the chain link as well. Good work you are doing on the gear conversions and I can remember when Enfield for a sales gimmick pushed the great little 250 Crusader up to a 5 speed unit. Disaster at the time ending up many owners reverting back to 4 speed clusters. Beautiful looking bike with the jelly mould fuel tank in bright red and silver frame. We used to call them the English Ducati.

[Edward]

I'm not familiar with the Electra rear brake so this may not be relevent. For drum braked bikes it's a good idea to apply and hold on the rear brake before tightening the rear wheel and any brake anchor to fully ensure the brake plate is centralised.

[Norm]

Hi Dennis, it never hurts to occasionally check that the center punch marks are correct,by checking alignment, it isn't the snail cams fault if the punch marks are not correct, the frame/swing arm can get slightly bent/distorted, swing arm bushes slightly worn and it doesn't take much up front to have an impact way back at the snail cams

[Norm]

Another thing I just thought of, Electra owners have often complained of a poor rear brake but I can't say I have ever heard of anybody with a left shift 4 speed Albion complaining about a poor rear brake. I guess the were all so concerned about poor gear changing than worrying about a bad brake because it still had the same crossover rod brake setup

[Frank]

Can't say I've had any problems with mine. Unless wet I brake 75% front and 25% rear and it seems capable of that. Only issue I did have was intermittent locking of the pedal accompanied by a terrific grating sound. Turned out I was catching my boot on the exhaust and the noise was the violent sudden burning of rubber!

[Norm]

Another strange thing that has occurred to me over the time but I had forgotten about is the fact that owners of the left shift cast irons don't seem to complain either.For some reason and I have never bothered to work it out is that the Electra had a slightly bigger crank in the brake rod to allow it to clear the pillion peg. Removing the pillion peg and straightening the rod certainly improved the braking