Bowdenex question

[Rogerfrench]

I must disagree with Colin Reed. There is no reason to lock the support hard, indeed I suggest that if it is allowed to rotate a little, on application of the brakes it will assume the correct angle. This happy state of affairs is provided by a thread in a thread, and as Mike Costigan has said, it's not going anywhere. At the same time, make sure the outer have plenty of curve. The curse of Bowden cables is friction, letting the cables run as free as possible overcomes it.

[Ian Williams]

In theory I agree with you Roger, in practice there is so little movement of the application lever that there would be no need for any alteration in alignment of the anchor point. In my opinion having a floating anchor with such a shallow thread resisting braking forces would lead to rapid wear of the tread and worse misalignment problems than you would solve. And yes I am fully aware that the late rod braked full girlling system used threaded pivots within the system, however these are quite long threads and even so exhibit high wear rates.

BTW I am one who is firmly in the pro Bowdenex camp having used them successfully for many years.

[Charles Levien]

I don’t understand why people think the bowdenex system will improve braking as opposed to the standard set up, properly adjusted. The argument used to be that bowdenex became more efficient in relation to axle twist when braking. Surely a better approach is to reduce the latter — renew spring shackles if necessary etc.
Am I missing something?

[Ian Williams]

This has been discussed many times Charles, and I think the consensus was that we all agreed to disagree, as with many things Austin 7 use what you see best for the reasons you believe that they work. You may be missing something you may not, but unless you try things and resolve or not any issues that arise you will not know, as already stated friction is the enemy of the bowdenex, and lack of rigidity and indirect pull the enemy of the standard system. I run both open and closed cable systems on different cars for different reasons, and in each case I am entirely happy with the results that I achieve.

[Charles Levien]

Hi Ian, thanks for your response to this. I think my own position is influenced by currently running two late Sevens ( 1937 0pal, 1938 special) both of which brake well on standard cable system.
Casting my mind back to earlier days and earlier made Sevens I do remember struggling to get brakes to both work and pull you up in a vaguely straight line. In fact my first car, the Cambridge special featured in a post here recently, had Bowdenex — in conjunction with the Cambridge IFS. It’s too long ago to remember how well it stopped. The new owner Peter Yates Who is restoring it might tell us in due course!

Charles

[Rogerfrench]

Ian, you have convinced me.