Flipping the rear brake drum lever

[rustreddesign]

I've seen bikes with the normally down pointing brake lever in the up pointing position, making for a better connection from a rearset. Probably a stupid question, but is this possible on my '74 cb360? I tried to examine my shop manual,but the exploded view is a little to small to make out what's going on internally and I haven't taken the drum apart yet.

 

[ridesolo]

The brake will work either way... w/ a push or a pull.

 

[VonYinzer]

Yup, ridesolo is correct. You do need to make sure that you have the proper leverage on the arm for the brake to work correctly though. Do some searching around the site and youll find some better explanations.

 

[Garage_guy_chris]

I found on my cb450 you cant just take the lever off and rotate it 180 degree's there is a unsplined part of the shaft, in order to point up i had to remove the brake plate and twist the assembly 180 degree's, you need to take it out because it will ramp the brake pads way out while doing this.

 

[I.Crashalot]

Ya, it works like a dream.
You will have to put a couple of bends in your brake rod to make it pull in a straight line...

The brake rod in this photo will be replaced..........

 

[rustreddesign]

So my next question deals with the details. It seems the spline is different from the top to the bottom of the mount. The lever fits easily in the down position, but when I flip it, it doesn't want to slide on. I haven't fooled with it too much yet so it may be just a matter of filing something or even just cleaning the thing out. Has anyone else encountered this? Thanks again. Everyone has been more than helpful. Also, I've started working on my rearsets so I'll be posting pics of the build soon!

 

[Garage_guy_chris]

yes i know exactly what your talking about you must have missed that bit in my last post, my 450 is the same, i couldn't flip just the lever, you have to "flip" the whole assembly if you take a look at this the lever (#10) is splined to the cam (#7), now normally the splines on the cam will only let the lever go on in the down position, but if you rotate the cam AND the lever 180deg the lever will go on upwards instead.

BUT.. you cant rotate the cam with the brake plate in the wheel, the cams action of expanding the brake pads into the drum will stop it from rotating, once the brake plate is out of the wheel the brake pads can expand outwards enough to let you rotate the cam so everything can face upwards.... done lever now facing upwards

this is a diagram for a 71 CB450 but almost all the honda's are the same thing....

 

[rustreddesign]

aha! That is a great diagram. My pdf of a poorly scanned 360 shop manual just doesn't cut it for this type of detail. Sounds like it's a pretty straight forward procedure. And it shouldn't be too dificult as I'm going to rebuild the drums anyway - I just want to get my head wrapped around the thing before I dig into it. Thanks again.