The Vintage Brakes Thread

[dirttorpedo]

Personally I love the Mafac aesthetics. With the right pads and levers they do a fine job. That said, the Ultegra 6600 dual pivot brakes on my Mercian perform far better than Mafacs ever could. I can live with the compromise.

View attachment 580057

I do like the look of them. I see you are using the Kool stop eagle's instead of the mafac style inserts. I think I will give that a shot for my first go.

 

[non-fixie]

I love MAFAC brakes, but I agree that they can feel flexy, if not set up correctly. A few things to watch out for:

- the MAFAC front cable hanger is rather flexible, and needs to be snug against the headset for best results (or get a CLB hanger, which is much stiffer)
- the rear cable hanger needs to be perfectly aligned with the rear brake caliper
- the later models have plastic bushes, which tend to develop play with wear

However, when you do get it right, they really are "one finger brakes".

 

[legrandefromage]

yes but what stops the arms themselves from flexing?

 

[hamster]

One other point, I remember finding the brakes on my Viscount were underwhelming. Modern cables and outers improved things massively (in addition to modern pads as mentioned).

 

[jim haseltine]

yes but what stops the arms themselves from flexing?

Apart from a bit of spongyness inherent in the original black blocks, I've never known any real flex in Mafacs. If the arms really are flexing they're too dangerous to use. Are you certain that it's not down to wear in the bushes (especially the plastic ones as mentioned above) or compression in the cable outer?

 

[non-fixie]

yes but what stops the arms themselves from flexing?

Making sure the cable pulling force stays aligned correctly with the arms. When they tilt under force, f.i. because of worn bushes or loose installation, is when they start to flex. Which does indeed kind of ruin the user experience.

 

[legrandefromage]

forget the bushes! Enough of the bushes!

The arms flex because they are weak and I am strong!

 

[dirttorpedo]

Ok, so I dismantled, degreased, polished and reassembled my new to me Mafac racers and then started the process of swapping them over. So i can't get a cable hanger - even a skinny one - installed in my headset. I assume its because I have a high stack headset (40mm?). Any thoughts on what decent low stack headset I should replace it with (campy?).

 

[legrandefromage]

dont you need a 'vintage headset' thread for that?


Hatta Swam, Tange, better value than Campagnolo

 

[torqueless]

LGF hates Mafacs but wants to like them.. or maybe it's the other way around? You need a big picture of Poulidor and/or Anquetil on the workshop wall, LGF, to cast a benign influence over your Mafac-fettling..

You can understand with what relief the pros all moved to Campag side pulls as the sixties waned.. One (long)
bolt instead of three shorter ones, not to mention the extra gubbins that holds Mafac blocks to the stirrups,
and those pesky cable hangers. Three or four extra linkages/interfaces to go wrong.

But then we ain't pros- we're hobbyist retroistas who supposedly take delight in returning the fine-tuning
to this outdated stuff. If it's too easy, what's the point?

Any thoughts on what decent low stack headset I should replace it with (campy?).

Can't you just replace the existing spacer (there should be one) with the cable hanger, and store the redundant spacer in an untidy drawer so that you won't be able to find it when you decide the pros of this Mafac malarkey are being outweighed by the cons?