Classic & Vintage - Road brakes w/o recessed nut?

Does anyone know of some decent dual pivot calipers that are made without a recessed nut? I'm looking for them for an older frame I'm building up, and it will be for touring so something with pretty good clearance would be good. I'm not even sure exactly how to go about searching for such a thing, but does anyone know of something fitting the description?

If you can get 2 fronts, 1 will fit in the rear and you can recess the rear of the fork for the front. Dual pivots came after the conversion to recessed.

Your choices are limited, but there are other options besides drilling the front fork to accept recessed mounts.

Check out this thread on converting a nice pair of tektro r556 dual pivots to a traditional nutted mount:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=465063

These are long-reach brakes so they should provide fairly good clearance.

I just had this problem with my 20-year-old Schwinn World, and this plan worked. The Nashbar brakes I ordered weren't too expensive and seem nice. The rear brake has been hard to get adjusted perfectly, but the rear brake on that bike was never the greatest even when the bike was new from the shop and still fitted with the Chang Star single pivots.

You might also search for Shimano a550 brakeset. These came in both traditional nutted and allen recessed. I purchased a set just before they seemed to have disappeared from the retail market (sorry, they're in use).

Here's an set on ebay. Might be worth it to ask the seller about the mounting hardware:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Shimano-BR-A550-Brake-Calipers-47-57mm-NEW_W0QQitemZ270391873558QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCycling_Parts_Accessories?hash=item3ef49c9016&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

Recessed nuts... No Problem!
This is a 1971 Motobecane "Le Champion" with a Tektro 521-AG FRONT brake caliper (the one with a longer bolt) mounted here on the rear brake bridge. Those are simple concave washers which would also be used on this bike for any nutted brake as well. The bolts are the same diameter for either style of brake. I just used a simple stainless steel metric "acorn" nut here in place of the original recessed nut. A simple hex nut would suffice, but I love stainless steel and this style of nut keeps the bolt end threads nice and clean. :o

For the front caliper, I inserted the shorter bolt of the REAR caliper through the front side of the fork crown and then tightened down the recessed nut which was slid up "INSIDE" the fork crown (as in, inside the steering tube) and with the bolt passing only through the front side of the crown. You can reach right through the empty rear hole at the rear of the crown with an Allen wrench to tighten it down. Depending on the thickness of your fork crown, you may need to just add a spacer (or a simple washer or two) to take up any slack if the bolt feels at all loose.

... No drilling required. :thumb:


Tektro's (prettier) copies of the Shimano BR-R600 longer reach calipers... at less than half the price. :)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3155/2969047412_301dcf89b4.jpg

A little dab of acetone removes the painted-on TEKTRO lettering without affecting the anodizing. :innocent:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3242/2969048596_92cbd0920d.jpg