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Tell me I’m being nuts. Those of you who have watched my work know that I’m a bit of a stickler for “correct” parts as much as I can. So this build flies in the face of that because I’m adding modern parts to an old muscle bike. But I still want it to have a vintage look. Which brings me to the dilemma of the brake lever. I haven’t even tried it yet and it’s bugging me. The black lever and painted silver. I already removed the “Avid” off of it. Should I take the next step and remove the paint, then polish it out? I can’t remove the lever itself because it’s pressed in there. So it may come out looking like crap. It’s a gamble. What do you think?

View attachment 216241
I just did a quick google image search for linear pull levers and there are lots to choose from. Maybe you can find another set that is closer to the vintage look that you're after. Even if you strip and polish those, the shape and hex cap screws are a give away that it is not vintage.
 
...or he could use current technology to push the whole muscle scene into the modern era. He's got disk brakes on there and you are concerned about the lever looking new? If everyone is forced to use the same old parts, everyone will end up with the same old bike and the class will stagnate and die.

I support this idea though:
polish it and drillium it? like mad holes all over it.
Speed holes for everyone!
 
Look, there I am, in Lublin, and Zamosc is just down the road from my farm, not so far from Ukraine...
Zamosc! Very beautiful town! An Italian town in Poland.
I liked it a lot there in 1992. Even though shortly after leaving, my bike broke down and I had to stop my bicycle trip in Lublin...
 
I’ll figure out to do with the brake lever. Thanks for all the input. For now, I set up operation and it worked well after some adjusting on the caliper.

So next I wanted to see about getting the drag brake working. When I restored my last Huffy Twin stick, I don’t remember the BMX brake knurl being too wide to clear the bottom of the shift arm, but I’m having that problem now. So to get around it I installed it vertically, which is causing a couple issues.

This is the brake at “rest”. The drag lever’s “fingers” at the bottom straddle the cable, then will catch the knurl.
042845DF-083A-4E19-A51D-FE66E26C209B.jpeg


Here’s the start of the engagement. The fingers catch the top of the knurl and push the cable down. It’s actually kinked the cable because of this.
0C7B9025-A528-4469-A4C9-2CED09A1EEA2.jpeg


Halfway through the pull the cable straightens out as the lever catches the full length of the knurl.
AB0E23FF-9632-4A0C-9BE0-E750E3B33599.jpeg


At the end of the “stroke” the forward housing is forced out of its seat. But the disc brake is fully engage and the rear wheel is locked up.
74FD37D0-971C-4B26-91B4-6C366526C0B7.jpeg



So… the questions:

- Is the knurl a problem? The only other thing I can think to use would be a fishing lure weight crimped to the cable. But would that be permanent? I’m open to suggestions.

- A spring was part of the original assembly, but I don’t know how it was used. As I showed you previously, there was a very long housing seat on the first Twin Stick I had. Maybe that was to keep the housing contained when it pushes back? So I can do that again. But I’ve seen a spring inside that, and I’ve seen a spring in front of the knurl. Neither makes sense to the operation. So I’m open to guesses. I’ve seen one without a spring too, so who knows.

Anyway… it’s close. Major progress! I just want to get the drag brake settled before I call the bike operationally set.
 
Seems ok for the drag brake as long as it's not interfering with the operation of the regular brake. Might leave a little bend in the cable if engaged for a long period of time. Could the spring have been to take slack out of the cable when the drag brake is in use? No idea just throwing that out there.
 
Could the spring have been to take slack out of the cable when the drag brake is in use? No idea just throwing that out there.
That’s what I thought too. I don’t have any slack being caused in the cable Maybe since I amped up the caliper spring, and the Avid lever also has a spring, So it’s looking like an additional spring isn’t needed.
 
UPDATE: I shaved half the knarp off. It still hits the shift lever a bit, so I’ll do some smoothing when I take it apart just to lessen the likeliness of it getting caught up. So… looks like that did the trick!

I’m also going to re-extend the forward housing catch. That’ll keep the forward housing in check.

So I think we’re good! I can’t see anything else to address mechanically! I’m going to tear it down and start prepping it for paint!
 
Tell me I’m being nuts. Those of you who have watched my work know that I’m a bit of a stickler for “correct” parts as much as I can. So this build flies in the face of that because I’m adding modern parts to an old muscle bike. But I still want it to have a vintage look. Which brings me to the dilemma of the brake lever. I haven’t even tried it yet and it’s bugging me. The black lever and painted silver. I already removed the “Avid” off of it. Should I take the next step and remove the paint, then polish it out? I can’t remove the lever itself because it’s pressed in there. So it may come out looking like crap. It’s a gamble. What do you think?

View attachment 216241
I think it might look cool with the mount polished and the lever either left black or painted to accent the bike colors.
Nice work with the drag brake too!
 
As I’m tearing down the bike to get it ready for frame prep I realized that the rear fender bolt had stripped out the threads I tapped into the mounting tab. Not idea why. Rather than step up to a bigger bolt, I’m going to pull a reverse trick I used when I built the Super Slingshot years ago. So I slightly modified a dander bolt. Tomorrow I’ll tack it in at work, then I’ll smooth it in and make it look like a seamless part of the frame.

204373AB-DDB9-4304-8EA8-B31EA49F4988.jpeg
 

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