Topic: 1976 CJ250T Front Brake woes

[belch_brother]

Hi all welcome to my first post.
I'll start with a bit of background, I live in Australia and have bought a CJ250T in non running condition to do up as a cafe racer. I have got the engine running (bent valve), bought 33mm tarozzi clip ons and universal rearsets, am half way through making a seat for it, as well as grafting a ducati rear tyre hugging guard to fit the massive 110 rubber lol.

When I got the bike home I realised the front brake was missing its non piston side brake pad. PPO (Owner before the guy I bought it off) had decided to keep riding it without a pad so the bracket on the inside is stuffed and the disc is a little damaged, (still within minimum thickness though ~7mm)

Master cylinder and the caliper both need to be rebuilt.

I really want to keep the front end as original as I can, but I don't want to spend money on second hand parts for an otherwise average brake setup.

My question is, what are my options? I have been searching around for a bit now and so far I have a few scenarios:
1. Rebuild a second hand caliper, get the disc machined, rebuild master and call it a day.
2. Swap front end for another with same headstock.
This one is the most interesting one I have come up with
3. Find a caliper and disc from a wreckers and use the centre hub of the front disc and mount the new disc to it, swap the front forks over so the brake is leading the fork instead of following it. And fabricate mounting bracket from existing holes for new caliper.

Thanks in advance. I'm sure this won't be my last post on here!

I have just joined flickr so I'll upload some photos when I get them on there.

[mrblasty]

If you do have a hydraulic front brake I thin any of the 350 or 360 twin front brake parts are the same.  I'm not for certain if the front brakes from the fours are interchangeable.  Looking forward to seeing the pictures.

[bryanj]

400 four is same disc and hub and i think 500/550 caliper is same.

If you go to:-

http://www.motogrid.com/pages/parts/viewbybrand/7/default.aspx

and look up the part in the on line parts list (360 is same except bore size) the cut and paste the part number into the "Look up" link on the RH side of the page it will tell you all the other hondas the part was used on

Good luck

[belch_brother]

After a bit of pulling apart

ebay photo that won me over... lol

another pic after I got it home...

Some polishing

More polishing...

Seat ideas with original rear cowl

Steel remake of rear cowl

Carboard seat... Lightweight?? lol

Second remake of rear cowl

another shot... thats 2mm mild steel sheeting bent with a vice and hands...

Ducati monster rear hugger.

Funnily enough, that site that you posted Bryan, doesn't even list a cj250t! Only has the 360 listed. And for some strange reason the 360 was only gifted with drum front end... So I'll have to assume that my front brake setup is the 400 550 cb disc setup. From looking at photos it appears the same, 4 bolt attachment to hub, same brake pads etc etc.
Heres an interesting one... my disc is left mounted. As far as I've seen most honda brake setups like this are right mounted... odd.

[bryanj]

The yanks never had the 250 version of either K4, G5 or CJ only the 350/360 versions.

Learner laws in UK made the 250 popular here dont know why in Aus.

Look at CB360G (or T or T76) Same thing but has electric start Or try WWW.Davidsilverspares.co.uk for availability of parts due to common in UK

EDIT,

Just had a quick look meself

Disc is same as 350/400 four and 350/360 twin

Caliper and bracket same as 500/550 four and 350/360 twin

Master Cyl kit same as 350/400/500/550/750 four

[belch_brother]

Cheers Bryan.

I have been doing a bit of sifting and found that a YZF disc has 6 BH on a 150mm BHD. The studs that hold the disc to the bucket of the disc (ha ha its hard to explain), I'm talking about the cast basket that the hardened disc has been mushroom riveted to, these mushroom rivets are 150mm BHD and 6 of them.

SO, if I can drill out those rivets and then re-rivet the YZF disc to it, I could then just make a bracket to hold the caliper from the original mounting holes for the old caliper.

Make sense? Might look a bit frankenstein-ish, but it might be a solution...

The other scenario which I found somewhere, was to get a rear brake setup that uses the axle as one of the mounts, and machine down the existing disc.

Hmm... brain hurt...