Cotter Pin Failure @ 70mph last night!

vtwin650

vtwin650

Been Around the Block
On my way home from a bike night at a local shop last night, I am cruising on the highway at about 70mph on my cb360, when something slams into my right foot. At first I thought I ran over something on the highway, but then noticed that my rear brake lever is no longer in the proper position, I look down to see the bolt that holds the rear brake stay about to fall out and go into my spokes, not to mention what else I saw - check out the pics below.

Cotter1.jpg

cotter2.jpg


So the cotter pin on the stay obviously "failed" and fell out on the road, and then the bolt, and then all hell broke loose. At 70mph, I feel very lucky that nothing bad happened and I was able to get off the highway and check things out. without proper tools, I rigged the parts not to fall off or into the wheel, and rode home without a rear brake. Lucky for me I have extra parts and can fix it after work today in about 30 minutes.
 
Glad to hear you're OK man! That could've gotten down right ugly.

Anytime I go to the hardware store, I try to grab a couple different sizes of stainless pins. Just so I'm never tempted to re-use the old ones.
 
Glad you're ok man!

This is why we can't have nice things....
 
rockcitycafe said:
this is why we don't reuse cotter pins, circlips or snap rings
Click to expand...

Yeah, I even know about this rule, and for some reason ignore it.
Not any more, now I am going to replace with new ones AND Safety Wire every damn bolt that I feel is going to cause me trouble.

And to think, right before this happened last night, I was thinking to myself, "wow, this cb360 feels good on the highway at 70 mph"

On a side note, I have read a bit about the top end oiling problems with the 360's, at what rpm should I not keep it at over a longer duration? at 70mph, I was turning between 6-7000
 
Another helpful tip here is to perform a "TClock" inspection before every ride as recommended by the AMA and MSF.

Tires
Controls
Lights
Oil
Chassis
Kickstand

As you just found out- it could save your life!

Matt
 
Wow, I've never seen a brake cam fail before.
If you put the pin in from 'frame' side I don't think it can fall out even if cotter fails
You did remove bolt completely before removing operating arm?
Usually the brake rod will wrap around axle and lock wheel, you got lucky finding that before crashing because of it
 
crazypj said:
Wow, I've never seen a brake cam fail before.
If you put the pin in from 'frame' side I don't think it can fall out even if cotter fails
You did remove bolt completely before removing operating arm?
Usually the brake rod will wrap around axle and lock wheel, you got lucky finding that before crashing because of it
Click to expand...

yeah, the "pin" or bolt, that holds the stay to the brake hub wiggled out just enough to let the stay drop down, which in turn put enough pressure on the brake cam to break it - as seen in the picture and then that part wrapped itself around my axle...but other than that it did no damage. Lucky for me. After seeing all that occurred, I am amazed that nothing catastrophic happened.

I have ALL BRAND NEW Cotter pins and nuts in place now and had an event free weekend - full of riding!!!
 
This exact same thing happened to me on my 400f. I was doing 80mph on the highway and it was like a quick explosion and then it was over. The brake rod wrapped around the axle spacer and snapped in half, brake shoes disintegrated, brake arm twisted like a noodle. A very humbling experience, indeed! Now I check all nuts and bolts and cotter pins like I have OCD.
 
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