Moto Guzz Rearset question - Tonti frame with rear drum brake

What are my options for rearsets for this bike? 1977 Guzzi with a drum rear brake.
The pegs / levers that I have now are rear set vs the original location, but I want to move them up & back so that my knees stop hitting the heads.

I also want them to look better then what I have now.

The big issue is the drum brake. All rearsets sold (that I can find) are for disk. I don't what the hassle and cost to convert to disk at this point.

the drum brake is activated directly by the lever by rotating a cross bar from the right side of the bike to the left. It is not really possible to move this cross bar. Searching the Guzzi specific sites, they seem to just use the stock rear brake lever and cut/weld it to length and then use a spacer to take up the space on the rearset. the previous owner did this on my bike with both the shifter and rear brake. I kinda want my shifter and brake lever to match, and what I have now is not the best looking.

I have seen cable conversions, but they run into issues with the brake performance falling off big time as they lose a lot of mechanical advantage.

If I can live with the brake lever and shifter, any idea where I can get a better set of bolt on pegs - similar to what I have but better looking? I have looked, but I have had little luck, mostly finding cruiser stuff.

thanks for any help.

I see the issue and had a similar challenge on my Harley, drum brakes are not easy to find alternatives for.

The Brake power comes from the lever on the brake pedal, i.e the distance from foot pad to rotating shaft, which you probably know. But the torque you generate in the shaft by pressing the brake pedal is being translated to a pull force again on the other side of the bike by the arm attached to the shaft.

So if you shorten the brake pedal arm, you need more force to pull the same force on the other end - unless you shorten the bar on the left side with the same ratio. There are limitations on this of course, the shorter bar you get the more travel you need in the pedal but it should be possible to get some flexibility here.

One option would be to get e.g tomaselli rear sets and just use existing brake pedal. It may require some shape change but it looks like it has been bent and welded already? As long as you keep the angular distance from pedal pad to shaft fixed you should expect the same braking power. Or play with the arm on the right side as explained above.

Using the original brake pedal for e.g tomaselli rearsets may not be possible, unless you find a way to link the new pedal to the old one that's strong enough to give the required power. Using the small levers on the hydraulic setup is not enough but why not extend the small tap for the hydraulic and link it to a (shortened) original brake pedal?

Or simply buy hydraulic brakes.. but that's cheating ;-)

Thanks,
it is hard to figure this out, but I think that I have a plan.
I got some dime city indexable rear sets. the plan is to use the rear brake lever that came wit the rearsets and cut down the stock brake lever to connect to a linkage like this -


http://www.dimecitycycles.com/dcc-originals-universal-cafe-racer-fully-indexable-rearset-foot-controls.html


I just need to get my bike back from my buddy's shop (he is welding up the seat and tank mount brackets) to see what I need to do next.

Yes, this was what I was trying to explain also I think. You have to bear in mind the connection between the new brake pedal and the original one needs to be flexible since they rotate around different shafts.

I would think a vertical slot in the new pedal and a corresponding tab at the end of the old pedal will work?

The rear sets you link to looks very sturdy. There is an example where they link from the pedal arm to a shaft arm of similar length with a connection rod. You may have too little space for this, otherwise I think that will work nice too with this heavy duty set

Perter
You seem to really know your stuff with the rearsets

See below: I am having a issue, I cannot figure out. My rear brakes worked fine when I took the bike apart. I marked the drum side to make sure that I reassembled the linkages in the exact same spot on the shafts. My rear sets didn't work at all at first. I then tightened the adjuster nut all the way in on the drum side and then lengthened the rear set linkage and now it works a little. Not good enough to stop the bike at speed, but at walking pace.

I know it is an adjustment issue. I want to shorten the linkage back up as the pedal is too high.

Would moving the indexable part of the brake pedal either way change anything? I think that I need to make the brake shaft turn more vs the brake pedal and I would think that only changing the mounting point height on the either the pedal or the other part would help.

I could make the linkage attach at a lower point on the end that isn't the pedal (know what I mean?) see my sketch. I could go from the right side to the left side.









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On my bike, the builder had taken an R1 rearset, and converted it to cable to activate the drum brake. This was then mounted so the cable pulls to apply brake pressure, rather than push a rod to do so. The bike's in the shop at the moment (died on the way to the tuner, gutted!) but when I have it back I'll take pictures. It's been done quite cleverly.