Gladius

Hello,

This is my first foray into the vintage forum. In '85 or '86 I purchased, new, a Centurion Elite RS shortly before going to college. At some point after that, I got rid of the bike. Recently I started looking to get my misspent youth back, and went on eBay to find a teal and silver Elite RS. Finally found one in reasonable shape/price and am now putting it back into riding shape. Not trying to restore it to pristine '80s condition, but also not making it into a frankenbike.

Several questions:
1) These don't appear to be the original brake levers. I don't remember (and the catalog pix don't show) a bi-colored brake lever, so I suspect these are aftermarket. Does anyone know for certain?

2) I've ordered some new, all-white dia-compe brake levers and want to remove these. I've pulled the rubber half-hoods back and can't find any bolt head (beyond the brake tension screw under the top of the lever itself) that will let me loosen the metal bands. How do I get these off?

3) I need to replace the brake pads, and don't want to just buy the crappy $1.99 pads that look like the old style ones. Is there a recommended vintage-looking pad that uses a quality, modern pad compound?

4) For some reason one of the two Araya rims has a presta hole, while the other has a schrader hole. The hubs and rims seem to match, so I have no idea why they would have mismatched valve holes. I've ordered a valve shim, but does anyone know why these might be mismatched like this? I will be putting presta tubes in just for my sanity.

T-Mar

My BRS levers have used a standard 4mm Allen recess, cap head bolt which is accessed via the oval hole in the front of the lever.

Unless one rim is 27" and the other 700C, then the rim was probably drilled out by the previous owner. This used to be a fairly common practice before the widespread availability of 700C Presta tubes. Rims would drilled out and grommets installed, so that a more commonly available 27" Schraeder tube could be fitted in an emergency.

Gladius

Thanks, it must be invisible to my (slowly getting older) eyes.

fietsbob

take the levers off the bars first..

Gladius

That's what I'm trying to do, get the levers off the bars.

T-Mar

I believe he meant to drive out the pivot pin, so the lever blade could be removed and the mounting bolt more easily accessed. However, this should not be req'd. Here's a picture of BRS levers, with the mounting bolt just visible though the oval access hole in the lever blade.

Gladius

thanks!