Rear Brake lever spring

jsnorton · Mar 22, 2019

Is anyone using a rear brake lever spring in case the cable should break and the lever drops into the road ? I see that Andover Norton sells them. I never gave it much thought before but it does make sense to use one. Are there any good home remedies that members have come up with?

Fast Eddie · Mar 22, 2019

I bought one from another supplier, but it didn’t seem to fit well and would have allowed the pedal to drop a lot anyway.

So I adopted the old racers trick, a strip of an old inner tube, it worked very well... and looked very racer !!

Hopefully you can zoom in and see it here:

jsnorton · Mar 22, 2019

Yes thats a good idea Fast Eddie

Craig · Mar 22, 2019

My bike came with the same cross section of inner tube as well worked great ...

candyapplered · Mar 22, 2019

I fitted one after seeing it in the Andover Norton newsletter. Seems to do the job and gives a bit of piece of mind.

Craig · Mar 22, 2019

When you think of what could happen if brake cable broke while moving , well worth cost/effort

DogT · Mar 22, 2019

I used to leave my early prop stand down once in a while during take off. All I noticed was it felt like I went over a speed bump. Didn't seem to bother anything, but I don't do that any more and I got one of those springs. I use the inner tube pieces to hold the rear of my fuel tank in place, it doesn't have the bolted strap.

jsnorton · Mar 23, 2019

the rubber strap ideas seems as good as any. I was a mechanic for 40 years, I'll look through my tool boxes and see if I might have a spring similar to that of what Andover Norton sells. If not I will use the rubber strap. Thanks everyone.

CanukNortonNut · Mar 23, 2019

I use the spring and it works a charm. It is a bit confusing on how it hooks up but once you have it installed "set and forget". Good insurance and piece of mind.
Cheers,
Thomas

Tornado · Mar 23, 2019

Here's how my spring looks when mounted...bit of a Chinese puzzle to get it there:

MikeM · Mar 23, 2019

I use a a spring after I saw what could happen. Cheap and easy peace of mind

Fast Eddie · Mar 24, 2019

Worth checking it though chaps, meaning, let it hang without a cable and see what the spring does.

Mine (can’t recall where I got it from, but not AN) still allowed the pedal to hang down enough for me to remove the spring and bin it.

ntst8 · Mar 24, 2019

I fitted an Andover spring a number of years back, just checked and the pedal doesn't drop at all if you remove the cable.
The rubber looks a simple option but you would need to regularly check it hasn't perished. The spring is fit and forget.

Tornado · Mar 24, 2019

Good idea FE to check spring does what it is supposed to do. Has anyone actually heard of the cable failing leading to lever into pavement syndrome? Cable does look pretty beefy for intended loads...would need to be in rough shape for a while before a failure I'd imagine.

On further rumination, if the cable were to break while applying rear brake, I'd think the riders foot would still push the lever down pretty much full through with or without a spring/rubber failsafe. It would be better to have some kind of hard stop limiter.

CanukNortonNut · Mar 24, 2019

"Has anyone actually heard of the cable failing leading to lever into pavement syndrome?"

Tornado,
Not me personally but from old parts that I had collected. I had repaired a brake pedal with evidence to the result of a brake cable failure. Prior to re-chroming a bunch of parts, I use heat, to a cherry red, to re straighten the foot pad which was bent out at about 45 degrees and had to add weld to the front leading edge to build the steel back up from the road rash where it made contact. Once I filed and polished it up then re-chromed you couldn't tell where the damage that was done. I probably cost me more for time and labor than to buy a new one and just bin it but.

It was fun and my time and welding was my own.

If you install the spring as in Post #10 you will not ever have a drop if the cable ever breaks. It's really a no brain er.
Cheers,
Thomas

Lineslinger · Mar 24, 2019

Thank you for the photo.
There is really no downside to having this little piece of safety assurance in place.
Things get exciting when attached parts start drooping when they are not supposed to.

johnm · Mar 24, 2019

I installed the Andover spring and it works fine. Does look a little messy I admit but its a good idea.

I have had a rear brake cable fail with the nipple pulling out. It happened about 15 years ago while I was using the brake to centre the shoes while tightening the axle. The cable had no flaring on the wire at all and it simply pulled through the nipple that was cast around the end of it. Very nasty and dangerous.

So now I always inspect any new cable carefully to ensure I can see the wires have been bent back. I have a friend who never trusts any cable he has not done himself. Even throttle ones which both he and I have had pull through at the carb end.

Front brake cables on drum braked bikes are especially concerning. Again I have different friend who spent a long time in hospital recovery from being taken out by the front brake failure on another bike while racing at the Cemetery circuit at Whanganui NZ. His back is still a bit second hand 25 years later.

Tornado · Mar 24, 2019

CanukNortonNut said:
"Has anyone actually heard of the cable failing leading to lever into pavement syndrome?"

Tornado,
Not me personally but from old parts that I had collected. I had repaired a brake pedal with evidence to the result of a brake cable failure. Prior to re-chroming a bunch of parts, I use heat, to a cherry red, to re straighten the foot pad which was bent out at about 45 degrees and had to add weld to the front leading edge to build the steel back up from the road rash where it made contact. Once I filed and polished it up then re-chromed you couldn't tell where the damage that was done. I probably cost me more for time and labor than to buy a new one and just bin it but. It was fun and my time and welding was my own.

If you install the spring as in Post #10 you will not ever have a drop if the cable ever breaks. It's really a no brain er.
Cheers,
Thomas

I guess my concern is if you're braking with decent load on the lever, cable snaps, you're not going to stop your foot pushing the lever down against the spring in time to prevent an issue. Reaction time not so great. I see it working as expected if cable just fails on its own while not applying foot pressure.

batrider · Mar 24, 2019

Have had good luck with the spring. I think movement of the foot on the peg is limited so you won't be pushing the pedal all the way to the ground if the cable breaks. That is unless you are using your heel to apply the rear brake. Much ado about nothing.

Fast Eddie · Mar 24, 2019

batrider said:
I think movement of the foot on the peg is limited so you won't be pushing the pedal all the way to the ground if the cable breaks.

That’s not quite the point...

The point is that if the cable should break, the pedal will then fall / rotate down by itself as there’s nothing to stop it.

When it does this, it can dig in as younlean over into a left hander.

It’s a very low probability, but if it did happen, it could have a high impact.