Brake pivot assembly

Yesterday I took the plunge and taught myself basic welding skills. I purchased a cheap as chips arc welder for the purposes of tacking together certain pieces for the experts to finish of properly.

One such part was a brake pivot that is a hybrid of sorts, containing bits from Hugh's Handbuilt, TC Bros and some of my own concepts.

As I am running the Mulligan Machine mid mount set-up, I was determined to keep the pedal in the orientation as per the original XS650. This meant that I needed to keep the relationship between the foot peg and pedal as close as possible. I used these reference points to determine the height of the assembly and the correct position that it was to be mounted upon the chassis.

I didn't like the idea of mounting an extra tab to the chassis for the return spring, as it was going to spoil the appearance of the milk urn, and most importantly make the articulation of the spring when the brake pedal was pressed down a little clumsy.

My solution was simple, I used the mounting block that came with the TC Bros brake pivot kit as a starting point. I knocked up some angle with a spring mount hole, and tacked together the Hugh's Handbuilt kit atop it.

Since my linkage kit will be a fixed rod length, it left me wanting a brake shoe solution once wear occurs. I welded on an extra arm upon the pivot bracket and an adjustment bolt. I simply screw out the bolt should the shoes show signs of wear and rotate the brake pedal a tooth or two to keep it in the correct position.

I'm also going to change the upper spring bolt for a shouldered one to allow the spring to have free rotational movement.

Another significant reason I chose to use the mounting block, was that I now have the ability to swap over to the TC Bros pivot assembly that is suitable for their forward control set-up. I also managed to come up with an integrated return spring solution for this pivot too. It means that I can swap over to a full forward control system in moments!