Hello fellas.
The A10 GF saga continues. Full restoration of engine, frame, gearbox and tinware was a nightmare at every stage. What wasn’t worn out was either bodged, missing or broken. Anyway, took it for its first test ride yesterday. Frame handles well - one of the best of the dozens of bikes I’ve owned / ridden over many years. Gearbox is fine. Engine has an intermittent annoying chain-like rattle. Not the dynamo or primary chain. Will have to look into that.
But the brakes. What brakes? I wasn’t impressed with the standard sls full-width setup, so made a tls conversion. Wasn’t keen on the sponginess so opted to fit a Triumph tls backplate unit. I had skimmed the drum, and it is still round despite the usual struggle to force a modern mis-shapen rim into a reasonable circle. The linings are new and a good fit. The linkage is properly adjusted, yet the brake is next to useless - the rear brake has considerably more stopping power than the front.
My M21 has a single-sided BSA 8” drum with tls conversion. It will bottom the forks. My B31 with sls single-sided BSA 8” drum will lock the front wheel. But this Triumph / BSA set-up on my GF wouldn’t skid on gravel. I appreciate that the older and no longer obtainable woven asbestos linings had far superior stopping power compared with modern materials, but this is unsafe. Anyone had similar issues, or should I change the wheels for something better? Those wheels are absurdly heavy and I could find far superior items, but I was trying to keep the bike as original as possible.
I realise brakes have been covered elsewhere, but a quick trawl didn't really throw up anything other than the consensus that these full-width brakes are rubbish.