I recently disassembled one of my Hercules to clean it up and noticed that the brakes were missing the part on the back that sandwiches the spring against the round front doohickey. I'm not sure what the part is called, but I'm just wondering whether to just put it back together with the part missing (it was braking as expected) or to try to find a replacement set of calipers. I've posted some pics below for to show what I'm talking about.


Rear Brake by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Front Brake by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

You will need the missing piece. If not replaced, there is nothing to properly hold the spring in place. It looks like the present set-up used a nut to achieve the same purpose but I would need to see where the brake mounts to make a better call. If it was working, so be it, but brakes are pretty important on a bicycle. You should try to get it right. Chances are you will be able to find another, if you look around.

I could be wrong but doesn't the notch for the spring go up against the caliper arm? It's like the spring is on backwards.

Don't think so Auchen'. There's another notched spacer that should go on behind the spring to clamp it in place, if I'm not mistaken.
Wonder if your LBS might have something off a used parts bin set you could adapt.

There is a washer aft of it (or a half moon washer as the case may be) on my '53 Sports.

edit - Where's RHM when we need him?

Actually they had the spring tightened against the fork crown on the front, and a nut between the spring and the seat stay bridge on the rear. All of the nuts are the wrong threads and everything. It's a mess!

Auchen, I see what you're saying but there's only one way the spring can go on the brake. The little thing that has the notch on the other side of the spring is what is missing.

rootboy, I think you're spot on. Now that I'm thinking about it, I seem to remember that I picked up all the parts that were stripped off an old Raleigh a while back. I'll have to see if it had a set of calipers with it. Maybe I can snag that doohickey off of it if the calipers were part of that auction. Time to head to the basement and root around in some of my boxes...

Auchen, the Raleigh brakes go together completely differently than any other brake bolt, and have a special conical washer that correspond with the spring. You won't find anything like it on any other bike.

-Kurt

Thanks Kurt.

Some of those elderly sidepulls didn't stay in adjustment very well, which is probably why someone decided to "fix" them and they didn't get it all put together right, usually the way to fix them is to disassemble them, clean the parts and then reassemble using fresh grease on the parts that interact with each other, except the shoes of course.... You need a couple of parts actually, one is the washer with the notch to fit the spring, and a new bolt, because when a nut with the wrong threads is used, it destroys the threads, you also need the proper nut. I would look for a replacement brake unit and throw that one in the junk box.....

The Raleigh pattern brakes changed parts over the years as well. The 58 Colt I restored brakes have different parts than the 72 Sprite 27" I'm working on now. Different nuts, bolts, threaded vs un-threaded spots on the bolt, bushings vs none. That concave nut with the recess for back side of the spring mates with the front half and the pairs do vary from different production eras. You are going to have to find the same vintage nut in order to be able to use the existing brakes. Try oldbiketrader.co.uk if you can find an old part manual from the correct time period and match the part numbers to his stock.

The assembly on your should look like this greasy work in progress


Part numbers:

Fenway, I dug around in some parts I got a while back and I located a couple old rusty calipers that I was able to use as donors. The bicycle these brakes are on is a 1956 Hercules Royal Prince, a Birmingham Hercules, not a Nottingham Hercules. Additionally, the brake is identical to my 1959 Hercules and it appears to be the same calipers as that used on Raleigh bicycles. I'm not sure what year the donor bike was that yielded the part, but it appears that it will work perfectly.

Here's the calipers with the donor parts added:


Rear Brake Fixed by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Front Brake Fixed by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr