Swapping brake systems -- Drums

[xwhatsit]

Hello smart people,

I don't like my pansy little front disc. It's pretty bad at stopping (in fact most CB250RSs seem to have shite front brakes), I've got to buy stuff like calipers, hydraulic oil, bleed the line, etc etc.

I rode an old BMW twin last week. Front cable drums. Magic, magic brakes. Wonderful bite-y feel, beautifully linear...

I want a front drum brake. They look so much nicer than a disc, as well as all the other points. It can't be any worse than the existing front disc, and I doubt I'm going to have the problems with drum brakes I always hear about -- brake fade and the rest -- the bike weighs diddly squat, and when I am pushing the bike (by my standards at least), I don't hammer the brakes, as engine braking does all that's necessary. I love my rear drum brake -- and it's mechanically so simple, unlike the horrible thing on the front.

This doesn't seem like a straightforward thing to do. Do I need a whole new wheel? Probably. A whole new front end, would that be easier? 33mm forks, by the way. Controls are not a worry, really -- with a cable system it simplifies things a lot. What sort of bikes would be a suitable donor? Do people do this sort of thing often?

Thank-you for your collective knowledge, which is, as always, very useful.

[bobsmith]

Ummmmmm.... have you been drinking?

[James Deuce]

There's positives and negatives to both systems.

The positives to a disc system tend to outweigh the negatives when compared to a drum. There are a bunch of reasons why discs are now de rigeur and you might be better off investigating things like brake lines, pad material, and master cylinder ratios, or even a different caliper (inc the correct master cylinder of course). There are a heap of calipers available at bike wreckers, and you could look at a new disc as well.

All these things will be cheaper than investigating a drum conversion.

[imdying]

Why drums are ghey:
- They're more prone to locking up
- The working surface expands away from the friction surface when they heat up

Having said that, if you're dead set on them, I can probably sort out some nice radius ground linings for them if you send me your shoes and drum when you find them.

[Kickaha]

I don't like my pansy little front disc. It's pretty bad at stopping (in fact most CB250RSs seem to have shite front brakes), I've got to buy stuff like calipers, hydraulic oil, bleed the line, etc etc.

Decent pads may help (cheap ones always feel like crap to me) and if you want to change the way the brake feels you can also change the master cylinder diameter

[xwhatsit]

I understand the drawbacks to drums -- fade, servo effect (perhaps culminating in lockup), but on a bike like this you don't really do that thing that sportsbikes do -- accelerate out of a corner, nail the brakes the next corner, repeat ad nauseum.

The only disc brake setup I've felt that was anywhere near as nice as these BMW drums was the twin front disc setup on my father's brand new V-Star 1100. Obviously not viable.

Is it really that difficult a process?

[MSTRS:Me]

You will need to change the whole front end. The fork leg outer has a tab that slides into the drum backplate to stop it rotating, for a start.

[xwhatsit]

You mean the `torque arm' thing that is attached to my rear brake? So this would require a lot of custom machining.

Maybe I should just buy a CB77 and be done with it

KB collective intelligence says: stick with discs you suicidal idiot. So I shall, for now ^_^.