Gnome Rhone Brake plate

Good morning all,
This is my first foray into 'blog' land so forgive me if it is a little long winded.

I am in the process of 'fettling my ABC which has been in the family since new. Your brake article caught my eye as the brakes on my machine are deplorable. I would love to fit a rear brake system to the front wheel as it is only 5" and the rear 7".

Does any other motorcycle of the period have an external brake drum like ABC's or is this unique? I have never seen another like it.

In order to improve the system I machine the shoes to a perfect fit and intend to make a new lever as the multiplier is only about 2 to 1 from the bars. I can also make a doubler pulley wheel on the lever to increase the action.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Guy

Guy,

The ABC brakes were advanced for 1921 as the Nortons of that period had a back brakes working on the belt drive V and cycle type rim brake on the front. Bradshaw's origin design for band brakes as on the Skootamota were replaced by Sopwith with drum brakes of a size that was only exceeded by Norton on their sports models in 1926.
The Skootamota front brake is extremely effective in the dry as were the V belt rim versions but pretty useless in the wet. The band brake on my Skootamoa was the caused of my serious accident in 2017 when it jammed and threw me over the handlebars.
You will not get the braking performance of modern disc brakes and even the decent brakes on my BSA A10 were inadequate for modern traffic so considerable anticipation is needed riding vintage machines in the twenty first century. That's the main reason for giving up motorcycling on the road and taking care driving my pre-war cars even though they have hydraulic brakes that are up to current MoT standards.
Roger