Ah, the infamous BSA/Triumph 8 inch conical hub front brake. I had never used one myself, but for almost forty years I had heard nothing but bad comments and opinions about how poor those brakes are, particularly in comparison to the pre 1971 twin leading shoe BSA/ Triumph front brake which works so well. So several years ago I bought three of those conical front wheels from the Newark Autojumble, one about the same condition as yours, one slightly better and the other a little worse. I restored and rebuilt the one in the worst condition first, had to skim the rusty pitted drum on my lathe and fit some unused genuine shoes. I built it with new stainless spokes and a Valtru stainless rim from Devon Wheel Company who have a video on RU-vid of how to build up the conical front wheel. I also bead blasted my hub and brake plate, sprayed them with etch primer then wheel silver and lacquer, and finished them off in the domestic oven at 100 degrees C for 30 minutes, told her indoors that I had a beef joint cooking in there. Anyway, I fitted the finished wheel to my 1971 BSA B25T Victor and the brake works just fine, the stopping power is immense. Maybe it's really a bit overbraked on the B25, but BSA did fit the 8 inch brake to their 1971 250cc bikes. So, despite what I've heard over the years, I really like the big conical front brake, although I've never tried one on a speeding 500 pounds Trident or Rocket Three. Your video might encourage me to finally get on with restoring the other two conical front wheels I bought, although the price of new spokes and rims is so high these days.
Yes, I think as long as these are setup correctly they are are good brake. I do have the earlier TLS brake on my BSA A50 and it is extremely good, would have preferred one on this machine but they are ridiculously expensive due to high demand from custom bike builders.
You're cracking on Ian. That was a tight bearing. Have you thought about having the shoes relined by Villiers Services? They do a very good job. Best wishes, Dean.
Actually found it more cost effective to buy new shoes, easily obtainable and I'm not too worried about originality. One of my first jobs in a motor factors included relining brake shoes, not motorcycle ones but trucks. We also used to make brake pipes and for some strange reason sold air cooled VW engines!
I was brought up on metric (I'm not as old as I look!) so for me it feels more natural. My measurements are only for comparison for the wheel rebuild so doesn't really matter if its measured in imperial, metric or smarties. I do sometimes measure in imperial, eg checking engine bush/journal where the specs are already in imperial.
