Dream Front Brake -am I missing something?

aerojack7654 · Post by **aerojack7654** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:45 pm

Hi folks,
As I've been putting the miles on my restored Dream, I've been concerned by the general lack of front brake effectiveness. When I rebuilt everything, I put new brake shoes on the front and back. I was pretty scrupulous about keeping everything clean and scuffing the shoes and the drums before assembly. After everything was done, the back brake seemed to work better, but I put it up to the front brakes needing to bed in. After not seeing any real front brake effectiveness for several rides now and finally pulling the brakes hard enough to pull the cable out of the little lead cable end trying to stop, I think that something must be wrong. Since the front and rear both work the same way, I'm wondering if there is a particular order to the shoes that I didn't get right up front. I guess that there could have been some contamination of the shoes that I'm not aware of, so I'll be pulling the front wheel while I wait for a new brake line, but I'm hoping that someone might have some insight as to why my front brake is so much wimpier than the rear.

Thanks for all your help,
Jack

mike in idaho · Post by **mike in idaho** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 1:03 pm

Most likely the new shoes need arced to match the drum. One way to do it is to temporarily glue some sandpaper strips to the drum,with contact cement. Reassemble the front wheel on the bike and spin the front wheel by hand, while holding light pressure with the front brake lever, until the lining shows full contact with the drum.

mike in idaho · Post by **mike in idaho** » Sun Aug 12, 2012 1:03 pm

Most likely the new shoes need arced to match the drum. One way to do it is to temporarily glue some sandpaper strips to the drum,with contact cement. Reassemble the front wheel on the bike and spin the front wheel by hand, while holding light pressure with the front brake lever, until the lining shows full contact with the drum.

EGBERTS · Post by **EGBERTS** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:05 am

Aerojack
Can you please tell me where you purchased the brake shoes? I have a '69 305 Dream which I just got going. Problem is I can't stop to well
thanks
john

aerojack7654 · Post by **aerojack7654** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:39 am

John,
I got my shoes from a vendor on ebay, and they appear to be a commercial repro part. When I removed them after getting Mike's reply, sure enough, the wear pattern was showing very limited contact between the drum and the shoes. I followed Mike's advice and contact glued some coarse sandpaper to the inside of the drum, re-installed the shoes and spun the wheel while applying pressure on the shoe. It sanded a bunch off of the shoe, so I cleaned everything off, and re-installed. There was definitely an improvement, although the brakes still remain significantly less effective than my Superhawk and CB350 front drums (although different design). I'm hoping that everything will bed in and I'll get the front to be at least as effective as the rear, which is better than the front (hopefully before I loose the front brake cable end again from squeezing to hard!)

Good luck,
JAck

EGBERTS · Post by **EGBERTS** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:29 am

I have been looking into ebay, but haven't been successful yet-Do you remember the vendor?
thanks
john

aerojack7654 · Post by **aerojack7654** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:09 am

John,
Ohio cycle (http://www.ohiocycle.com/catalog.html) lists front bake shoes, although they require that you call and use money orders to get the parts (no online sales)
There's also a set on ebay right now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Honda-C ... 8b&vxp=mtr

I don't remember who I actually got mine from though. The's another forum thread about Dream brake availability that recently started that has some suggestions as well.

Good luck
Jack