Brake lever cotters

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Would it help you if an illustrated guide was written/produced?

[Tony Betts]

hi tony,

good luck with the blocks.

mine took a massive amount of adjustments to get the patterns to work. its only a small block, but thats a large part of the problem. the process of producing the first batch, and the financial outlay cost me health problems mainly from stress. it also sent me old and grey early.

the heads got to the stage that producing a batch of 10 at a cost of £15,500 was just to much to put on the shelf. aas people were not prepared to give £2,000 for a new block. and if you have a problem with one block, YOU ARE IN THE RED.

GOOD LUCK.

as for the parts you are stocking from the uk, is a two pronged sward. i read the suggestion of measureing and drawing etc for new parts, and although the public may feel that makes sense? do remember the cotter pin sells for around £1.50 each. who is doing professional drawings for machine companies to work from at that price i dont know.

it is quality to price.

and as charles suggests, the quality is far better than 30 years ago.

id suggest the problem you have in quality of parts, is in half, because your supplier is a very large company. and cant keep up with quality to production of the number of items he is manufacturing.

the other half of the problem, as it has always been. is there are three items in manufaturing this job.

brake cam,
slip cotter,
brake arm,

these were usually made by at least two different manufacturers, and today likely to be made by 3 different manufacturers. 

not of the three talk to each other, AS THE COTTER IS THE CHEAPEST PART,  the cotter has been make to fit the incorrect parts.

NO uk supplier can afford to throw away ill fitting parts.

tony

[Tony Press]

Would it help you if an illustrated guide was written/produced?

Yes.

---

good luck with the blocks.

mine took a massive amount of adjustments to get the patterns to work. its only a small block, but thats a large part of the problem. the process of producing the first batch, and the financial outlay cost me health problems mainly from stress. it also sent me old and grey early.

the heads got to the stage that producing a batch of 10 at a cost of £15,500 was just to much to put on the shelf. aas people were not prepared to give £2,000 for a new block. and if you have a problem with one block, YOU ARE IN THE RED.

GOOD LUCK.

This is our second attempt after a somewhat problematic first attempt some years back. 

Your story on the patterns sounds very familiar and as you say the possible casting failure rate makes the whole job very costly. 

I personally think it is a very time consuming, risky and expensive business but apparently some members are willing to pay  and the stock of good original blocks is steadily shrinking.

Thanks !

[Tony Betts]

sorry to go on a tangent on this thread, but im sure it will come back to its original questions.

tony.

am i right in what i heard?

the first batch produced over there, were cast in aus, and machined overseas?

perhaps to keep prices down.

my main problem, was austins original blocks had movement in the casting process.

and mine had the same problem.

it ment the castings had to be individually set up for machining, which made them time consuming. and expensive.

tony.

[Tony Press]

No all machined locally, as will be the next batch - or however many survive the casting checks .