Pace RC36 Disk Mounts

[Mullac]

Hi guys,

First post (apart from the introduce yourself thread). Great to see this forum, takes me right back to my teenage years and lust for shiny bike bits!

Anyway, onto the point... I have from those teenage years, still got my '95 Kona Kilauea, which I'm about to pull out of storage and start riding again, much thanks to retrobike forums for the inspiration to do it!

The bike has a set of Pace RC36 forks from the same era on it, I think I was the first person from my bike shop to get these when they were first released and which I remember being excellent in terms of response and damping. The bike also has a Hope mechanical disc brake, again from the same era... I remember the braking to be a bit questionable, not helped at all by the, erm, 'interesting' mount hope supplied for this fork. I remember it to be a clamp with a shim which mounted the caliper on the fork leg. I also seem to remember a fair amount of flex in the forks when using it....

What, if any are the options for improving this setup? I had dreams at the time of putting a hydraulic disc on in it's place but never got around to it. Would anyone happen to know if the mounts are available for this, or if Pace ever produced an RC36 fork leg with a built in mount that would work on my fork? I'd really like to keep this period if possible so I'm turning to you guys for any knowledge you have on the subject. Surely other people have put discs onto RC36s succesfully?

Cheers,
Callum

 

[cherrybomb]

You mean like this?

They weren't very popular at the time and I think Hope actually withdrew them in the end 'cos people kept crushing their fork legs by hanging off the spanner whilst fitting them. :roll:

As far as I know Pace never made a replacement leg with a disk mount, that's what the second gen. RC36's were all about but I could be wrong.

 

[IbocProSX]

Do older RC36's work with the second gen lowers that have disc mounts?

 

[cherrybomb]

I think that's one for JBD.

Actually thinking about it:
Hope mechanical disks are much earlier than RC36's. You sure you don't have the later style RC35's :?

 

[Mullac]

Yep, that'll be the hydraulic one I always wanted then! Is that yours, if so how do you find it works?

Difficult one then... do the second gen RC36s come up often? I'd be willing to change them if it would improve the braking significantly... What year did the second gen ones come out?

Ideally I want to keep it as period as possible... but my memory of that disc is not good so I want to do something to sort it!

Any recommendations from anyone?

 

[cherrybomb]

The one in the pic is mine, but I've not had a chance to try it. The hub is cracked. :roll:

I'm still a bit confused over the dates of your stuff though. RC36's are from about 1997 at the earliest which is way after Hope mechanical disks.

 

[Mullac]

Interesting.... The dates are fuzzy at best... but I could've sworn I got the mechanical disk after I got the RCs....

Those are my forks if I remember correctly... I still haven't seen a picture of the mechanical disc brake I have anywhere though!

 

[cherrybomb]

Is it like this one? I'm sure The Ken won't mind me using his picture.

 

[Mullac]

It's similar.. the arm etc looks right but the caliper itself was a shiny black with hope embossed on the top of caliper block, I don't remember the spring being there though, I thought it was built into the screw somehow.. and the mount different I think. The disc looks right though... Is that a much earlier brake from Hope?

I pick my bike back up from storage on Tuesday so I'll get some pics then!

 

[rc300]

If you have the hub with the shorter axle and a disc you would need the caliper mounts and a no1 caliper half as shown mounted on the right.