Hey gang,
Working on my dad's 1970 Falcon:
I'm not sure whether you can tell from that photo (but you can
click here and browse around), but the brakes just don't have enough reach; especially the rear wheel, where the pads are in the bottom of the calipers and basically are half on rim, half on tire.
I know these 700C clinchers replaced sewup wheels some time when I was in middle school (originals are long gone, but I remember dad showing me how open, patch, re-sew, and re-mount a sewup -- I want no part of that!), so I'm guessing the originals were 27". (Anybody with a similar vintage Falcon, or other comparable British bikes know whether 27" was preferred because of Imperial sizing rather than metric?)
SO, in order to solve this problem I guess my options are to replace the brakes or the wheels. I'm thinking brakes will be cheaper, but how easy would it be to find even longer-reach vintage brakes? (These centerpulls are Weinmann Vainqueur 999, 610 front/750 rear) And longer-reach would be less-effective, right?
Looking at eBay right now at 27" wheelsets,
these are almost in my neighborhood so I might be able to save the $40 shipping with 60-90min of driving (which, with the cost of gas all of a sudden in CA, is about $10-15 anyways!!)
Or
this set looks pretty good, maybe I should jump on them for $89 shipping included? (But Schraeder? Really? What would happen if I ran Prestas through the bigger holes?) Also, 130mm spacing, I don't know what my Falcon's spacing is offhand, but I do know there's a lot of extra spacer going on to fill in all the extra space with only the 5sp freewheel that's in there right now.
While I have your attention, I am having another problem with the brakes, the pads are not parallel to the rims (the brake-arms seem twisted), and I can't figure any way to adjust the brakes to change this. I tightened the pivot-bolts and that seemed to help a little, but if I tighten any more I think I'll crush the little red plastic insert sleeves.
Thx as always...
[UPDATE] I'm an idiot, and once again BFC&V helped me rise above myself! Look at the obvious angle between the rear calipers and seatstays in the picture above. I loosened the mounting bolt, pushed the brakes toward the stays (against the pressure of the cable), and the brakes swung into proper position with a perfect reach. Almost like the brake bridge was designed to be used with Weinmann 750s to reach 700C rims!
The problem was I tuned cable tension BEFORE tightening the mounting bolt, so the brakes were pulled away from the seatstays. The reason I did that was because I wanted to tighten the mounting bolt last, so I could get the centering just right. I did the same thing on the front, but there's less of a problem because of the longer mounting bolt (all the way through the fork).
I guess I need to tightly mount the brakes in the proper position first, so I can properly tune the cable tension. Then loosen the mounting bolt again so I can center, and also push the calipers down towards the stays when I'm holding them in place to tighten. I might have to get some kids involved here as third and fourth hands for this operation!
As for the toe-in, I think the best solution for that would be good brake pads with spherical washers, so a little angle in the caliper ends becomes irrelevant.