V-brake conversion

Shawn

New Member
I aquired a 1987 ST-800 frame/fork on EBay. Am now putting v-brakes on it, but am having some difficulty with the front fork due to clearance issues. Does anyone have suggestions as to what type (if any) would fit best?

Thanks Shawn
 

rickpaulos

Well-Known Member
So what is the issue? Brake shoes over laping the fork blades? Arms out wide because the pads are too close to the rims? Other?

Many of the v-brakes use pairs of concave/convex washers for pad alignment. Most have a thick pair and a thin pair. They can be swapped out from the inside of the bake arms to the outside of brake arms to move the pads in/out.

Some brake shoes are just longer than others and will overlap the fork blades. Kool Stop multi-compound pads are much longer and will overlap fork blades on nearly any bike.

There are "mini v-brakes". I have a pair on my 1986 road touring tandem that previously had canti's. The shorter arms make them road brake lever compatible.

Tectro makes a v-brake compatible road lever. V-brakes take more cable pull (less leverage) than levers for cantis, disc or old school calipers. If you use the old levers, the levers can bottom out before you get the stopping power you want. Conversely, using v-brake levers on calipers won't give you the leverage you need to stop. I put v-brakes on my Trek 520 touring bike and also used the Tectro road levers (and bar-end shifters)

If you use STI levers and v-brakes you can use 'cable-pull multipliers'. I don't remember all the brands but Thing-a-ma-jig was one of them.

rick
 
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