I love when someone says "no offence but..." and then says something that makes you sound foolish. No offence taken. The part that makes me unsure about this is this is what will (hopefully) make my bike stop when I really need it to. Forgive me if I'm a little leary about working on an already broken brake system on a 31 year old bike when I'm just getting into this.

As far as my question about swapping for a newer system, I thought at some point the overall design of bike brakes changed so that it pulled from both sides instead of just the one. This seems like it would be more reliable and possibly a worthwhile upgrade if I'm going to keep the bike for a while.

It's super nice of members to offer their spare parts up! I've never been very good about accepting gifts though. How does one go about buying stuff from other forum members? Do people use PayPal?

Thanks for the info (and the ribbing)