RP brake lever position

[Nick Salmon]

Bit of guidance please.

I have the back axle out of the RP (seal replacements) and thought I would just check the correct position for the brake levers.

Viewed from the diff should they be at 7 o'clock

   


or 1 o'clock?

   

p.s. Apologies for the poor quality pics.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

The top photo (7 o'clock) is correct Nick.

[Martin Prior]

I'm alarmed by the number of cars that come to us with the levers the wrong way round, rendering the rear brakes almost completely useless!

[Nick Salmon]

Thanks Martin. Exactly as I thought. PO had them at 1 o'clock. Aside from the brake linings being nicely steeped in EP140 that position would not have helped the braking effort!

[Ian Williams]

I'm alarmed by the number of cars that come to us with the levers the wrong way round, rendering the rear brakes almost completely useless!

Apparently Austin 7 brakes are supposed to be useless, it is all part of the A7 folk law that we are supposed to uphold Martin, this is just one of the dodges some owners employ to ensure they do so.

[Reckless Rat]

Because it's so much easier to remove and replace the cotter pins if you rotate the brake levers 180°, it's quite likely that many owners just left them like that, not realising that they were reducing quite considerably the effectiveness of the system.

[Bob Culver]

This topic regularly arises and I have seen several reversed. Without ratting out deep buried parts I seem to recall the pre Girling Ruby has levers slightly more forward than the RP. Perhaps someone can confirm. Cable lengths differ.

Arms are inverted because the car is lowered, or long arms are preferred  and wont clear the true RP axle, or are assembled with the axle unsupported when the alignment seems reasonable etc etc.
In most cases it seems inevitable will strike bodywork if upside down..

The cable should be constrained to move vaguely tin he same arc as the axle..if met, braking should be much the same