Weinmann 605 Brake Restoration: Part 1

After the polishing and re-assembly of the Atax stem and the Philippe Franco-Italia handlebar, the next logical step was the restoration of the Weinmann 605 sidepull brakeset. When completed, this would allow black cloth tape to be wrapped onto the handlebar and would finish off the front end.

Front Brakes Before

When I had first ridden the PB 12 I was appalled by how bad the brakes were. The lever effort was very high, gritty and non-linear when the brakes were applied. Once the brake shoes made contact with the rims, there was very little brake effect and further pressure on the lever blade produced only a slight, further reduction in speed. Modulation was extremely difficult. Obviously, the brakes needed a complete overhaul. If you look in the photo to the right, you will notice the frame scrape damage from the quick release lever bolt’s missing rubber cap and a maximized adjuster. The clear, yellow ring is the factory retainer that holds the QR together before installation. Why are they  still there  on both calipers, who knows.

Rear Brake Before

The first step was disassembly. The handlebar plugs came out, with a certain amount of encouragement, and the cloth tape unwound without prompting because the dried adhesive simply flaked away.  I undid the brake cable fixing bolts for the front and rear calipers and remove the brake cable from the housing. The cables came out dry and appear to never have been lubed as there was no residue on the cable. What is worse, the housings were unlined and had no plastic conduit. This partially explained the rough and high effort of the brakes when I tested  them. Once the cables had been withdrawn from the drilled Weinmann 144 levers, a ratchet and socket released the levers from the bars and then a 10 mm removed the calipers from the frame and fork. Oddly, once the calipers were in hand, I found the rubber bump stop for the front caliper quick release bolt to be located on the rear bolt. At least I wouldn’t have to try to locate a replacement.

Disassembly:

With the levers and calipers off the bike, a quick reassessment was necessary. The lever hoods were dry, had tiny cracks and were hard and inflexible to the touch. As well, an attempt to remove them failed as the hoods simply refused to move or to lift from the main lever body. Soaking in water did nothing so they were dried off, then cut off using utility scissors. The interior revealed a white powdery material which was the residue of whatever the factory used to install the hoods onto the lever bodies. This meant new hoods but I did not like the Weinmann originals so that was not a problem.

The 605 brake calipers were not completely disassembled but the springs were released from their black Delrin covered posts using needle nose pliers (leave these black covers  in place) which allowed the arms to float free for cleaning and polishing. The black plastic front pivot bolt cover was left in place as well and the  caliper arms and springs of both calipers were wiped down with CitriSolv and  a tooth-brush. Once clean, they were polished with Autosol and a microfiber cloth.  The caliper pivot bolts were lubed with  spray on Super Lube  which considerably reduced friction at the pivot bolt and then the lever springs were re-hooked over the spring stops. These spring arms were Super Lubed as well where they sat in the Delrin spring seats. The Weinmann and 605 engravings in both calipers’ brake arms were picked out with water based black paint.

The OEM Weinmann X cut brake blocks and the wheel guides had been removed from the calipers as units and then separated from each other. The brake blocks were hopelessly hard as a fingernail would not mark the surface. Replacements were ordered. The guides were cleaned and treated with Armour All to restore their shine as was the black pivot bolt cover and the Delrin post covers on the arms.

The brake adjusters and the cable retainer bolts were disassembled, cleaned with CitriSolv and then polished. One of the quick release levers needed to have the stamping spread slightly to allow free movement on the barrel. Both black plastic lever covers were trimmed of flash plastic and, along with the black plastic adjusters, treated with Armour All. They were then reassembled onto the caliper arms and tightened down. The black rubber bump stop was then added to the front caliper arm to prevent further scratching of the frame’s downtube.

Brake Blocks:

Old Pad

As mentioned earlier, the OEM, X cut Weinmann blocks were useless. Replacements were ordered on-line and arrived from Niagara Cycles in the U.S. in a prompt manner. The blocks came two per card and had the same X cut configuration as the OEM Weinmanns. Dimensionally, the shoes were almost identical. Where they differed was in freshness.  I suppose one cannot really criticize a 34 year old brake block for being dried out but they were really ineffective. When I prepared the new brake shoes for installation, I sanded them down on 600 Grit paper to clean off the mold flash and open up the friction surface. The old shoe, on the right, looked like this with virtually no rubber removed from the brake block’s surface after 6 strokes against the paper. The effort hardly even removed the glaze on the pad. The new blocks got the same 6 strokes

New Pad

to clean their new surface and they shed crumbs of rubber readily. If you are refurbishing an old bike, change the brake blocks for new rubbers and change the cables to lined stainless or Teflon coated versions. The sole exception to this would be the restoration of a period correct bike that had to have a specific  cable style like a ribbed housing and would only ever hang on a wall. For the PB 12, the  4 new brake blocks look almost the same  a s the old OEM Weinmann pads but the surface looks ready to actually stop the bicycle. Once the pads had been prepared, they were mated with the wheel guides and returned to the slots in the brake caliper arms. Cleaned, lubed, polished and highlighted the reassembled calipers looked like this:

And, yes, the brake cable fixing bolts were reversed to the correct direction for installation on the frame and fork. This was just to make them pretty. In installment 2, that installation will be described along with the lever restoration and bar wrapping.