tronnyjenkins 

I'm working on the px10 and came across another dork mod- safety levers. I'm ditching them and want to know what kind of pins the levers had originally. Can I find some locally, or am I going to have to order whole new levers?


Thanks.

juvela

these pins to convert mafac levers to extensions were manufactured by Bicycle Research Products of Concord California in the 1970's.

Chombi

Short of getting a different set of Mafac levers, the only sources for new, original pins might be sellers at eBay from France that stock a lot of small NOS spare parts, and you still have to be lucky that they might have it. There's a seller at eBay that goes by the name of something like "French-old-bikes", I always check them out when looking for small French bike parts. Otherwise, you can just look for beat up Mafac levers you can buy for cheap an harvest the needed lever pivot pins from it.

juvela

mafac levers are so cheap and plentiful at venues such as junk yards, dumps, bike co-ops, yard sales, etc that there would seem little point in searching out replacement pins.

keep in mind that the holes in the levers for the pins may have been enlarged to fit these after market ones.

in case anyone is curious here is what the conversion kit looks like new -

JohnDThompson 

Interesting. Did MAFAC spec Dia-Compe extension levers, or is this a home-brew modification?

Chombi

You can also just "shave" off the extensions used for the levers to pivot on those conversion pins so they would be flush with the lever body.....
They will be covered by the lever hoods anyway, unless you use Mafac half hoods, but you can smoothen the cut ends as needed....

juvela

between the two choices offered it would be on the "home brew" side.

bicycle research products made almost exclusively tools. this is one of their rare non-tool products. company owner Don Millberger also operated a retail bicycle shop. he had a technical background and formerly worked at Lawrence Livermore Labs.

dddd

Mafac would not have made the deal to use the Japanese safety levers on their own brake levers imo.

In fact, I have a pair of what I believe are factory-made Mafac levers with safety levers. The safety levers have no brand markings and are of a slightly different form from the Dia Compe levers, but how luckily coincidental that Dia Compe levers would actually fit (have the correct pivot-to-hook distance) both the old Weinman and Mafac levers.

Here is a photo comparing one of my factory levers with a Dia Compe retrofit:

Metacortex

Here are what appears to be Mafac built extension levers with a different engagement than the Dia-Compe style levers: Mafac Vintage Dual Road Bike Brake Levers Silver | eBay



Perhaps this was done so they didn't have to license the Dia-Compe patent: Patent US3403577 - Brake operating device for bicycle handles - Google Patents

After looking it over again that style of attachment appears to be shown as fig. 11 in the patent drawings, so I believe they would have had to license it either way.

jyl

Just use some washers in place of the extension levers.

juvela

thanks 4d!

this topic has also been discussed in previous forum threads. in this one see especially the message from t-mar:

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...key-wings.html

another set of adaptor pins was offered by the ACS company of Monrovia, California.

Budget Bicycle Center - Mafac Brake extension safety lever adaptor vintage ACS

tronnyjenkins 

Haha, great minds...

repechage

A bike shop/importer distributor concoction.

Peugeot UO8's did not have "comfort" levers. Customer liked the brake levers on the Japanese bike equipped with them but liked the ride of the Peugeot… so
Bicycle Research and a few others made a stepped pin with a cir clip that Fit Mafac levers and Weinmann/Dia-Compe "comfort" levers.
Client got the Peugeot he likes with the Japanese functionality.
Shop made a bit of extra profit, I recall $8.95 extra in the 70's for the levers, pins and installation. Actually the price of the parts, labor was factored in and thrown in for free.
unused parts from the brake levers and Dia-Compe lever kit were tossed in a bucket.

So, look for an OLD shop with a hoarder type owner.