| Wheel work over, is a lot of work. Everyone when they hear of a Vintage bike for sale, at a good price, wants to know if it runs and goes, but I've never heard anyone ask "does it stop?" Stopping is a safety issue. Not only for you, but your fellow comptitors. I spoke with Multi time National PVMX Champion George Marshall about doing this article and we both agreed, stopping is more important than going. I know quite a few of you out there know all this stuff about restoring wheels to service. This article is for someone who wants to do the work themselves but has not worked on wheels before or in a while. |
| The Yamaha AT1MX Replica Project |
Wakeing up Wheels
| 1. The first step is removing the wheel and securing the backing plate in a vise. 2. Fold the shoes over to release them from the actuator cam and pivot pin. 3. Once you get the shoes to fold they should come off easy, watch out for the springs, they like to jump off, roll and hide under stuff. |
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| 4. Just look how crusty the pivot is. 5. If the brake shoes have enough thickness, and you plan to use them over again, mark the groove in the arm on the cams splined end by scratching a line so you can use this line for reference upon reassembly. 6. Wow, can you say sticky brake? Corrosion and rust like this has caused many DNF's and crashes to unsuspecting Vintage MXers, especially when buying from someone you don't know and it's a "RACE READY" bike. 7. We buy the large off brand scotch brite type pot scrubers, then cut them into strips and use a shoeshine motion to clean the parts. 8. Compare this to picture 6. In 8 you see a Brake actuator that is going to move smoothly and return properly. |
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| 9. Corrosion where the actuator passes through the backing plate has to be delt with as well. 10. Use a screwdriver to run a strip of pot scrubber as shown in 10 & 11. Then what I do is hold both ends of the pot scrubber in my hands and spin the brake backing plate around and around. 12. Time to deal with crusty the pivot. Give him the shoeshine. 13. You see how much, or should I say how little waterproof greese is on my finger? Don't use any more than this! The greese will get on the shoes and you will have to start all over. 14. Now it's time to use that scratch line to put the arm back on in the right location on the actuator. 15. Use a wood rasp to take the glaze off the brake shoes. Use an arcing motion and try not to make flat spots or cut too deep. |
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