tired of hitting the wrong lever on the cub after riding my beta . the cure would seem to be moving the brake lever over to the right, and using a cable instead of brake rod.

anyone experience of this( did don smith do it on Greeves, was it done on bultacos'?) if so what should it look like or have you a picture. or can you reference or link a picture

cheers yours in the garage..TS

My Bultaco certainly had a cable operated brake, but it also had a gear shaft that went right throught the engine so you could had the gear lever on either side.

First thing I did was to get rid of the cable and put the gear lever on the right as the cable brake didn't have the same feel, its routing was the probem.

PersonalyI would learn to live with it.

cable routing cold be a bit tricky

have you thought about using a cross-over shaft?

assuming your current lever pivot is in the foorest mounting plate, drill and bush a corresponding hole in the RH plate, drill out pivot and fit bush in LH plate, fit shaft thro holes in plates, new brake lever mounted on RH end of shaft,

then either new lever arm or existing lever on LH end of shaft (how trick would that be to have a lever on both sides?)

like that alan! thinking out of the box a solution that throws up even more questions, going to garage for more coats of looking at..

My Bultaco certainly had a cable operated brake, but it also had a gear shaft that went right throught the engine so you could had the gear lever on either side.

First thing I did was to get rid of the cable and put the gear lever on the right as the cable brake didn't have the same feel, its routing was the probem.

PersonalyI would learn to live with it.

Exactly. Cables are not good, and I'm guessing the brakes aren't brilliant anyway?

perhaps not as mechanically effective but they were good enough for don smith to get a second in the ssdt

perhaps not as mechanically effective but they were good enough for don smith to get a second in the ssdt

Would that be The don smith who won the european championship? And at a time when brakes were not that good generally? How many ssdt sections go down hill? Thought so.

I had a ride on some Puma Racing Bultacos recently. These bikes are built and set up almost to perfection, possibly perfection itself even, as everything works as it should, much better than when they were new. The rear brake was no exceptopn. A couple of the bikes had cable operated rear brakes. Perfect feel on the pedal meant I could even use it to steady the bike balancing with clutch in, the pedal action was light, smooth and progressive and responded to the lightest of touches. Not far off the feel of a hydraulic brake by comparison.

I guess the secret is a perfectly machined boss that the pedal locates on with correctly bushed pedal with no slop/resistance, quality cable with routing for least resistance (although I think it was normal routing from memory) and then whatever Mr Puma does to the brake shoes and actuator in the hub.

The front brake and clutch gave the same superb feel on all the Puma bikes I tried, very close to modern bike hydraulics in lightness and feel (clutch was probably lighter actually - yes, on all three Spanish marques...) These are both cable operated so why shouldn't the rear brake work well by cross over cable. It's all in the set up obviously from someone who knows how (ex factory Montesa and Bulto mechanic) No way I can get my Sherpa rear brake to work like that and I'm just swapping it to left hand pedal/rod this week as it happens... But if you can find a man who can.

ive been toying with this rh brake idea but the pedal its self would be dificult to position if you think that the kick start has to go way down there to when starting

although i had a ty 175 and the same thing happens there to ,have a look at 1 of them

the cable looks quite feasable the outer mounted on the brake arm and looping right over the mudguard down the side of the oil tank to the new pedal similar to the bulto rh brake

i would use 1/8 cable nice and thick outer

another good thing about this would be no problem with suspension movment

ive got 6" of travel and the rod always pulls the brake on

just checked out the yorks classic members /machines gallery and discovereed that Norman Shepherd has what looks like a cable brake on his James.

http://www.yorksclassictrials.co.uk/images...anShepherd..JPG

just checked out the yorks classic members /machines gallery and discovereed that Norman Shepherd has what looks like a cable brake on his James.

http://www.yorksclassictrials.co.uk/images...anShepherd..JPG

It also appears to be touching the exhaust on its journey.

Neil Gaunt has got a nice conversion on his Ariel too, think he uses a handbrake cable...some nice pics in Classic Offroad a few issues back.

good luck.