Front brake on the above is renowned for being utter shite & that’s on a good day :bag: I’ve been reading up on various modifications that people have carried out because I need to do something to improve stopping power. Mods include grafting in a disc brake front end from another MZ model but that entails severe butchery & it isn’t worth the hassle IMO. There’s also another mod that entails fitting oversize linings to the brake shoes & then machining them to get the minimum clearance between the lining & the brake drum. Sounds feasible but I decided to start at the beginning with a new set of brake shoes from ost2rad.com The lining on the new shoes is slightly longer than the lining on the old shoes so hopefully that will improve braking (new shoes at left)

For my next trick I ran a 16mm drill through the axle hole of the brake plate (axle is 15mm) to allow the brake shoes a little bit of room to self-centre when the brake is applied

I made a shim to fit over the brake cam to push the brake shoes closer to the brake drum but I had to abandon that plan because the brake assembly wouldn’t fit in the brake drum with the shim fitted. At least now I know that there is very little clearance between the brake linings & the drum, which can’t be a bad thing

The brake drum is in good nick, no pits or ridges

I put everything back together so the next item on the agenda is a road test when I can get around to it. One peculiar thing that I noticed when I stripped the brake is that the wear on the old linings is at the trailing end rather than at the leading end. That will need further investigation after the first road test.