Drum brake is dragging
 

I installed a replacement Sturmey Archer rear wheel in my 1990 Gazelle Solide.
The 3 speed works a lot better, but the drum brake sucks. It's dragging more than I like.
I made a short video to explain things a little better. If a picture is a 1000 words a video must be 10.000 :)

Wow, uberprutser , great video. I can clearly see the issue. The problem is that I don't have any experience with the Sturmey Archer drum brake. My first thought is that something is not sitting just right, however, you seem to pretty good mechanically since you had the drum brake apart and sanded the brake lining to get any glaze or oil off.

I am impressed with you rod brake roadster. We have, or perhaps, had, a lot of members here that are knowledgeable on Sturmey Archer hubs. Let hope they see this and can help. Many of the tend to be on the C&V (Classic and Vintage).

I am also impressed that you ride the bike with wooden shoes. It is probably not impressive, however, it is new to me.

uberprutser from looking at the video I don't see any malfunction. If there is a way to increase the spring tension on that brake arm and make sure the pivot point is not binding. After this hold the back end up so you can freely spin the wheel and adjust the brake arm until you can barley hear the shoes dragging then slightly back off.

Calling Dan Burkhart .

You have a number of videos posted on YouTube. The brake shoes on the hub in the video below looks ok to me. But I am not an expert.


Is this the same wheel? Did you the swap drum brake mechanisms?

Yeah some of us Dutchies still use traditional wooden shoes :)

This is the same Gazelle S.A. wheel as the one I took apart in the video posted by Velo Mule.
It's from 1980 and I gave it the same treatment as a nineties S.A. Steellite drum-brake.
The Steellite worked a lot better after cleaning and sanding, a lot less drag. But no such luck on this 1980 drum-brake. Perhaps it just needs some time...

I made a short follow up video, where I adjust the rear wheel cone and have another look at the drum-brakes:

I am disappointed that you are not getting responses. I did read somewhere online that it could take as long as a year to "bed in" the brake shoe to the drum. That is a bit surprising since the drums are made to the same size from the Sturmey Archer factory and unlike a car don't get worn away that fast. The wear item is the brake shoes. So, swapping the brake assembly, I believe will result in a slight difference, but I would believe that it should be less than you have.

From your newer video, it looks like your thick nut is now acting as the jam nut and your jam nut is acting as a washer. This should be ok. Now that you have the play out of the wheel, you still have the same issue: Not enough stopping power. And the front brake doesn't sound right either.

I'd look at the front brake first. It does most of the stopping and the fix my be simple.

Where are the Sturmey Archer experts???

You right, I should check out the front brake first. It only makes that, rather loud skipping sound, when close to stopping.

Where are the S-A experts when you need one?

Perhaps you should just get a Shimano Nexus with a roller brake or get rid of the Internal Geared Hub altogether and get a derailleur. This ancient Sturmey Archer stuff cannot be fixed.

Ok, I am just saying that to see if that wakes anyone up.

GamblerGORD53 , Dan Burkhart , southpawboston , 3alarmer , Andrew R Stewart , Sixty Fiver

I haven't seen Sixty Fiver in a long time. I don't know if this mention will ping his email. It may be worth a try.

I don't know if you are experts, however, I noticed that you responded to Sturmey Archer questions in the past. I think there are members here that are familiar with the planetary gear system inside the hub, but that the drum brake is a less familiar issue. That is too bad because Sturmey Archer has been making these drum brakes for a long time and for the most part, I think that they probably have few problems.

Being in Holland, there are probably some experts there, but how to find them, other than going to a bike repair shop and perhaps having to pay someone to make it their problem, I don't know.

On the front brake, could it be that there is a bushing or something that is worn that allows this "stick - skip" sound/vibration that you are getting?

I do have a bicycle with Shimano roller brakes. But even after adjusting them properly, I still find them rather rattly on an uneven surface like a dirt-road.
More rattly them the rod brakes on this old roadster :) Stopping power is rather good, but if you adjust the brakes till the rattle is gone there is just as much drag as the S.A.
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I had the front brake apart and the result wasn't to bad :)