merziac

Yep, and I'm no expert as we all know but the geometry of the arms, yoke and all look weak in pull to my untrained eye.

jdawginsc 

Yeah, it might have been better mechanical advantage for the same design if the arms were further extended outward.

eephotog

A bit of an oddball ask, but I'm looking for just the front fork for a yellow '93 Bridgestone rb-1. My thought is that if I can find a really big one, off say a 62/63cm frame, I'll have enough length to do a threadless conversion.

VintageSteelEU

I like the cable guide on this one. I'm now thinking that manufacturing the Weinmann kind of spacer (the one that goes between the calipers and the fork) with this kind of extension protruding from it could be an interesting project. Tektro does something like that, but I didn't feel quite convinced to their design.

AJI125 

Usually I don't like the look of additional stuff on the brake but I agree, there's something that doesn't look too bad to me. And for a frame without the cable stop it could offer up some interesting cable routing. There's the shorter reach brother (801) of this one on eBay currently if you get the itch to check it out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/29514072897...mis&media=COPY

SpeedofLite 

I just acquired a first-year 1981 Specialized Stumpjumper with Mafac cantilever brakes. A part that's missing from the rear brake caliper is a straddle cable anchor pin (proper term unknown). See photos below.

This pin is a single-piece and looks like a tiny hex dumbbell with a hole through the shaft connecting the hex head ends. The hole is enlarged on the distal side to accept the head (3.73mm diam) of a straddle cable. The head on the proximal side of the shaft is just large enough for the cable to pass through. The pin shaft between the hex heads is 7.44mm long and 5.48mm in diam.

The bike came to me with the brake set up with the barrel end of a traditional brake cable being held to the "claw" of the caliper mostly by tension since the barrel was too large to fit into the caliper arm claw end opening securely.

If you have one to sell or trade, I'm your guy!

ehcoplex 

I'm 99% sure the anchors for the Mafac cantis are the same as those on Mafac Racers, which are pretty easy to come by. You can find 'em on eBay, but people seem to think they're 'rare' and ask dumb money for 'em (the anchor bit, not Racers)... If you have one of those mythical bike 'co-ops' everyone here talks about you could no doubt find one there.

smontanaro 

Looks the same as on the ubiquitous MAFAC Racer.

Mad Honk 

Yeah looks like the Racer variety to me as well. The prices I have paid for them on E-bay was about $15 per pair.

I bought these from Old Spokes Home for $15 per pair.
I could likely be talked into parting with them. Or you can do like we did with VW throttle cable ends and use one of those to hold the cable in place. Smiles, MH

nlerner

An alternative that would likely work and cost less is a cable knarp. Here's a version on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/122238831080

VintageSteelEU

When I was putting centre pull brakes (Vainqueur 999) on my Grand Sprint, one of my main concerns was the front cable guide. Basically, the headset I use is Stronglight P3 (or a variant of it) with stack height of around 33mm because it's probably the lowest stack height one can find in French threading. The point of getting that one was to make sure the locknut threads on fully onto a short-ish steerer tube. I can't really go for much more than that, because the locknut might possibly have very little thread to grip onto. So putting an extra spacer in there (like the Weinmann headset cable guide one I'm using right now) makes me a bit anxious. I check the locknut before every ride and it seems to be doing alright, but I'm always a bit paranoid about it.
Tektro have a fork mount cable guide, but it would look out of place on a 70' bicycle and then it's for cantilever brakes, so probably would require some modifications to work with centrepull calipers anyway.
That model 951 or 801 gives me an idea for a custom solution: take a standard Weinmann aluminium spacer (that chunk of aluminium that goes between the calipers and the fork) or just make one, cut a spline into it on the flat side (thus making sure that anything put in there will clear the bottom cup of the headset as well as sit firmly in its position), then take a flat piece of thick steel just wide enough to go into that spline, shape it depending on what is required and add the cable adjuster on top. Looking at my bicycle now, I think the cutout for the cable anchor bolt wouldn't be necessary. I'm probably overthinking it a bit though, because the current solution seems to be working so far. And I guess grinding down a bit of the French serrated washer on its non-serrated side could be a less labour intensive approach.
Thatnks for the link anyway. The reach is probably too much for any of the frames I have (generally one requires more or less 57, 67, the other 57, 57 and one I'm working on will be eventually getting side pulls with 57, 57 reach), but the design is very interesting and uncommon.

ehcoplex 

There are a few other options to think about- there's a cable guide that clamps to the stem, I think Velo Orange sells one. Maybe not quite as out-of-place looking as the Tektro guide... You could also drill a hole in the 'reach' part of the stem... A little bit tricky, and no doubt there are those who would wail that doing so is courting death, but pretty clean.

unworthy1

not from me: that's an often-used technique and if done correctly there's very little danger to the stem.
Correctly for me means chucking the stem at the correct angle in a vise and using a drill press to first drill the thin (2mm or so) hole for the cable and then the larger 4-5mm "countersink" in the top for the cable housing end, following the thin hole as centerguide.
Try to do this without a drill press and vise is asking for trouble, IMO

USAZorro

Odd request of the week here. I'm in the process of rehabbing a matched pair of low-end 4-speeds so I can get them out of my hair when weather starts to warm. They'd been stored in a very humid basement, and spokes rusted (which I can address), but some of the nipples are frozen solid, and they're going to have to be cut. Consequently, I'm looking for 6-12 272 mm 14 gauge spokes. Would take more if you have them. Galvanized would match what's on there.

Thanks,

Z

oneclick 

I had a similar issue and solved it two ways.

The first uses a long Mafac rear brake hanger.
There are long ones, and the short ones won't work.




After that I made one; it really needed to be longer than the Mafac would allow, to avoid a sharp curve in the cable run.
This is a bit of stainless spoke silvers-soldered into the wings of a brass wingnut that's been tapped for a normal adjuster.
(This pic is from the trial-fit - the angle at the bottom has been "adjusted" since.)

VintageSteelEU

Quite interesting solutions. I like the second one more. Though soldering is definitely not my forte Something to look into sometime.

What I use is this:




As mentioned, so far I'm just checking the locknut on that headset to make sure nothing comes apart during a ride. Which isn't a huge issue and so far I didn't notice the locknut coming loose. This might be something to look into if I were to sell the bicycle.
There was another solution I was looking into, which was Nitto stem mounted cable guide. They do look reasonable. The prices aren't what I would call reasonable (some £30 in the UK) and they are not always easy to find. But they do look like an elegant design. I was thinking about getting one, but then I wanted the bicycle to use solutions or components which would be available back in mid 80's. The whole bicycle uses components from before 1987 (hubs are 87' I think, though older design Atom, rims are MA2, so introduced in 86') and the idea is to keep it this way as much as possible.

ehcoplex 

You could use one of the Surly seat-post binder-bolt hangers (very similar to oneclick 's solution). Surly isn't the only company making one, and I think there are various lengths...

oneclick 

Check the diameter of the stem clamp bolt, you mght have to "adjust" one sized for a seatpost binder.

dddd

Have you tried blasting the frozen spoke nipple for 5-6 seconds with a pencil-tipped propane torch?

Get the wrench on there quickly while it's still hot, avoid blasting the spoke itself.

I've done this hundreds of times, seems to work really well if the nipple isn't yet rounded off (or the spoke broken).

USAZorro

Interesting idea, but I haven't because I don't have one. Do you think one of those long-tipped lighters they sell for lighting charcoal grills would work?

Still need at least one spoke though because one snapped. I have two or three sets of wheels I'll need to build for other projects, so will tuck whatever 272s I need into that order.

Senior Ryder 00 

Great idea​​​​​​! I even have one of those torches.
Cheers,
Van

Unca_Sam

reminder; remove tire, tube and rim tape from the wheel first!

Senior Ryder 00 

!

AJI125 

I just remembered I picked up an old Dia Compe set (note the red label but not “Drop Forged and the grey tint) getting two 750s for my Fuji and one came with this cable stop contraption, it mounts between the bolt and backplate. Roller and cable adjuster, oddity!

Ex Pres 

ISO: Araya Aero2 (ADX-2) tubular rim, silver. Prefer a 32h, but I'll consider any drilling. Lots of 1s and 4s floating around, but looking for a 2.

Have: lots of other tubular rims, or other stuff that could be of interest.