This goes up in the fixie forum first because I'm sure several regular readers have encountered this problem.

You've got a great old steel frame you're building into a fixie, but since you only get one brake you want something with a little more stopping power than the antique attached to the fork.

So, last night I took off the old side pull on the soon-to-be trusty Fuji. I picked up the long nut for the 105 brake I was going to install and found that it was a little bigger than the hole in the back of the fork. In retrospect, this makes sense - the original brake had the bolt come all the way through the fork and attach to a nut on the back of the fork.

The fork hole is 6mm and the outside diameter of the brake nut is +/- 7mm. Since the fork is steel, I was thinking I could pull on the safety goggles and drill out the hole just a little bit.

Anybody tried/done this? How did it go?

I've retrofitted two old steel frames for new brakes with the recessed nut. Both times I drilled out the hole in the fork and in the brake bridge in back. It worked fine both times. I used a bit designed for hardened steel. Good luck.

drill away......or grind the new nut/bolt down to fit the fork