Dual leading shoe for Maico 490

[crabman]

Hi
I am writing from South Africa. I own two Maico' s 490 twin shockers neither of which stop too well. I am thinking of trying to convert both 490's to a twin leading shoe front brake larrangement, ike the YZ 490 Yamaha. Has anybody done a similar conversion ?
I have sourced a Yamaha 490 hub, looking at the differences it looks like a lot of work. Alternative would be to run a Honda twin leading shoe with a set of Showa fORKS.
Any advice given will be positively received.
Thanks

[paul]

hi this  brake set up was on a old 490 i bought  standard axel ,new spacer and a lug welded on the inside off the fork leg im sorta wishing i had keep those bits cause mine go faster when you pull the front brake on

[maicomc490t]

Pauls' pic is of a front end I now have , thanks to a swap with Paul for the original gear. I have to say that whoever modded the leg by welding on the lug REALLY knew what he was doing as sliders hate having things welded on them with massive distortion a distinct possibility.

An easier way of getting a result is using a YZ465 2L/S brake assembly in the standard Maico forks coupled to an adaptor plate and torque arm, or a plate running down the inside of the forkand the front wheel with a lug fitted to it. If I can find one I have I'll post a pic.

There is no need to ditch the standard front end, it just requires some creative engineering.

See you at the back of the pack in 08 

[crabman]

thanks from South Africa

[TonyB]

crabman are you Andrew?

[crabman]

Hi it is Gavin Williams, I think you may have confused me with Andrew Peinke, one of the larger collectors of VMX bikes in South Africa. Andrew has an impressive collection of VMX bikes, from time to time I have dislodged a gem from him. Andrew has become a living legend both in terms of the size of his collection, detail and originality.
CHOW from South Africa

[maicomc490t]

Hey Gav,

Have you got any lions in your backyard? Or Girraffes or elephants, lol  

Any chance of posting some pics of the racing over there?

Cheers mate,

Dave

[Wombat]

I'd also love to see the sort of tracks you blokes have in S.A.
Piccies would be geat.
'490, I imagine the lions/giraffes are as thick on the ground as the 'roos and koalas strolling our streets...

[paul]

so dave what the creative engineering that you have in mind or is it top secret, ive just polish this so will i weld a 1foot brake arm on for leverage

[maicomc490t]

Hey Paul,

That 490's looking sweet - keep polishing it now!

Keep on my back and I'll get cracking on a torque plate for the YZ465 2LS. BTW the wheel etc you posted is KTM, not Yammy so I'll be interested to see if I can use the lugged left slider with a 465 wheel.

See you at the back of the pack in 08 

[paul]

was all that driveing  my eye site  falled me   

[crabman]

Unfortunately I do not have many photo's I will ask around, the only photo's on hand were photo's of me riding a 1983 480 CR Honda in a modern day race. On balance if I added my age 43 and that of my Honda 24 it would have given me a combined age of 77 against the average age of the field below the age of 30 and a bike age of 1. None the less the geriatric combination finnished 8 or 9 ( old timers cannot remember) out of a field of about 15. Wwill post some VMX photo's shortly.

[TooFastTim]

Ah, Killarney (15k's outside Cape Town) the number of times I've been out of my tree there are too many too count.

[crabman]

Bought a bag of old Miaco bones - believe it or not I was once told that a dual leading shoe had been fitted at the factory for a local South African champion at the time. If correct then I found the bike many many many miles from where it was raced in an old filthy workshop, in a very sad state - dual leading shoe looks fine.
The luck of the Irish they say
I am happy, so happy so very happy, very very happy

[TonyB]

Oh well i guess us Yamaha guys don't have to worry about bodgy front brakes and welding things onto forks etc, we just get the perfect bike in one package,