rear brake cable adjustment adaptions?

[Terry McGrath]

Just a reminder that cheap simple balanced brakes can also be achieved with a thermometer laser gun aimed at each brake drum after a run. Amazon sell them for £12.

[JonE]

here are M6. about 70g... and near on 3" adjustment.
Will experiment with whether there is enough metal on the clevis for the M8 pin. What weight is the M8 arrangement?     

[Reckless Rat]

Interesting thread, although on my car I can't see a huge advantage. With a Girling front axle and an Austin rear, even with fitting shorter brake levers on the front I have to leave quite a lot of slack in the rear cables to prevent rear wheel lock up under heavy braking. The weight of a long turnbuckle like those in the last photo might cause the brakes to drag, which will then require extra springing on the cams to prevent it. A sort of solve one problem and create another scenario?

Just my two penn'orth.

[Cliff Ringrose]

JonE. The 8mm. one weighs 155gm. Probably too much.
Reckers. The object of the exercise is not to improve on a well set up system, but to make it much easier to achive. I find it very time consuming and difficult to get both rear cables excactly the right length useing the standard crude cable adjusting system that led to the use of those dreadfull "adjusters" in the past.
Cliff.

[JonE]

here are the results with stainless M6 and a good old cable, for those wanting a new eye with simpler/cheaper parts. But it looks less pro than going to the chandler, or buying an expensive fitting.
 I found that cutting it just after the frayed end from the original attachment is TOO long even after the "new" end has to be considerably shortened to cope with a safe new attachment - the last pic here is with the cross shaft actuator in the wrong rest position. These reasonably light M6 fitting have less adjustment than larger M8. The only hassle is getting the securing U bolts close enough to the finished loop with older inflexible cables - that is why I resorted to using some galvanised wire to hold it together after being clamped. Longer U bolts that you could cut down would be great.
Goodbye dreadful adjusters, but also good for recycling/re-using perfectly good strong (all steel - don't do it with original Austin ones with a rope inner) rear cables. [Sorry, but macs dont seem to be able to get pictures that come the right way round when loaded].                

[Roger]

This is how my front brakes are adjusted each side then in the centre for final setup.
   
The rears are fastened at the drum end by a fixed fork swaged to the cable.
   
The adjustment for the rear brakes is at the front end by means of a swivel fork to a swaged coupling.
Having used this type of rigging in my sailing days I reasoned that it would be plenty strong enough for the brakes. Although it was rather expensive it makes fine tuning very easy.
   

Roger

[JonE]

how much adjustment does that swivel fork give, Roger? Very neat.

[Roger]

Jon,
It has about 2” of thread but my calculations did not quite work out as planned as you will see I am nearly at the end of the adjustment.

Roger

[Dennis Nicholas]

Just as an aside a local search for "wire rope" may bring up a small family business that deals with everything frome big heavy crane ropes to 4mm "rope" (steel or stainless).  They usually have all the facilities for swaging and providing and cutting the rope.  Chandlers may be a bit more pricey and not many of them inland or away from rivers!
I found just such a place just north of Exeter who made me up, as it happens, 2 lots of window winder wires for my Espace i.e. 4 items for not much more than £10 a few years ago.

Dennis