buddiiee 

Need new hoods for my Mafac Racer levers. Rustines sells Mafac hoods but they don't know if they'll fit Racer levers. Anyone here purchase repro hoods for their Mafac Racers lately?

Ged117 

I bought Cane Creek hoods for my Mafac Racer levers. With a little adjustment, they fit quite well. I used some dish soapy water to slide em on. If you find that the levers have too far of a reach, there is a nifty DIY fix in this thread involving some rubber innertube (that's what I am going to try).

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/969584-way-mafac-racer-1.html

buddiiee 

Any pics by chance? I'm not sure which levers I have at the moment (I'm at work) but I think they're the Drilliums; though could that just be a name for another set of Mafac levers that were just drilled out and renamed?

Salamandrine 

Yes, they fit, just like the originals. MAFAC didn't make tons of different levers like Shimano. They're basically all the same. There is a pretty big caveat however. If you have older levers that originally had half hoods, those will work best with half hoods, because they hold the cable ends in place. The full 'normal' hoods are meant for later versions of Mafac brake levers. They switched sometime in the 70s I believe. The later levers had a bigger adjuster ferrule thing that tended to stay put. They will work with older levers also, but the cable ends can pop out of place if you climb hard on the levers, which is disconcerting.

If they are drilled out they are the later levers that are meant to use full hoods.

buddiiee 

Yayyyy. Cool, can't wait to try them. I had won a NOS set of those levers with hoods about 5 years ago, and when I started to look at them closer they're getting hard and starting to crack. It's cool, at least I got to ride an NOS set of those hoods a while before they started cracking. Can't wait to try the Rustines

jcb3

Rustines work great on the old style (first picture) - I don't know if cane creek hoods will work on these because the lever is thinner (vertically)

I also have a pair of newer Mafac levers (plastic body) that have an integrated adjuster (unlike these that screw into the hood) - Cane creek hoods work on those (see second picture below)

buddiiee 

Oh no! The drilled levers on the bottom aren't plastic bodies are they????

(but dam those stronglight cranks are soo sexy.... had a pista set on my track bike the 'paris sport' when I used to ride track as a child; miss those things)

79pmooney

Interesting. My levers, purchased 1978, looked like those except the metal of the levers was not wrapped around. It formed a "U" if you cut it in cross section. (Like the last two inches of your levers but all the way back to the pivots.) Looked perhaps better but chafed my middle finger badly when I climbed. The lever sported bar tape wrapped round it for years, secured with a sailor's whipping. My hands would have loved your levers. In fact my hands liked the old beat up Racer levers on my UO-8 fix gear far better.

Edit: I think the bodies of mine were aluminum. Funny, I don't really remember. In any case. they held up really well. Rode those levers from 1979 to 1995 and around 25,000 miles. Were as good as new when I took them off. (Sadly the edges that chafed my fingers hadn't softened at all!)

Ben

dweenk

If you want half-hoods VO has them, but they are pricey.

https://velo-orange.com/collections/...c-brake-levers

buddiiee 

DAM!!! My drilled levers are PLASTIC... I'm selling these things lol

jcb3

I ran the plastic ones for a while and had no problems.

Some are wary of the plastic bodies but the Mafacs generate so much braking leverage with little pull effort (if the straddle is set up properly) that I never felt I was taxing the levers

I’m talking tubular glue melting performance with single finger pull

buddiiee 

Oh I know lol. I've rode these Mafac Racers on this frame since '85 lol. New school people just don't know the power of these brakes. I don't care how fast you're going or how heavy you are these will lock the wheels up on demand any time, any where, AND with decent modulation as well. I LOVE to listen to the "disc brakes are the best bike brakes ever invented" people lol. Yea, have fun with bleeding your brakes, and brake fluid, and all this other wayyyyyyyy too complicated unnecessary brake crap lol. My brakes are rock solid and a 9 year old can work on them lol.

SurferRosa

And what do they charge to ship? $12?

At least go to ebay and get free shipping.

repechage

I can think of three drop bar styles right off.
The "half hood" type, with and without quick release.
the later full hood
The plastic no hood