Latest Weight Weenie Foolishness ti brake bolts

[cnighbor1]

Latest Weight Weenie Foolishness

rdf1249@aol.com


Here's the front Campy brake from my Raleigh 753. I had already put alloy brake pad holders, alloy adjusters, and alloy nuts all around on it. Now I've made some titanium + alloy center bolts. I got some 6-4 titanium all-thread with rolled threads, and a friend is making me the threaded spring holder bits out of 6061 aluminum. They have little set screws to hold them in place, and I also loctited them. The center bolt alone is 14 grams lighter than the stock steel one (11 vs 25 grams), and now the whole brake is 37 grams lighter than a stock brake. That's nearly 3 ounces off the bike.


I'll have the center bolts available soon. In any length. Campy had 3 lengths, but if you need them different you can have them. I'll announce when they are ready. Just waiting for more of the spring holder machined parts from my friend.


The alloy adjusters come from Poland via ebay. The alloy nuts come off of old Dia Compe brake pads. The alloy recessed nut is Campy, Good luck finding the alloy brake pad holders. They were from later Super Record brakes. Yes, I could drill out the brake arms, and I could make the QR barrels out of alloy, but I think I'll stop here.

Robert D Freeman
North Bend WA

[FlashUNC]

Or just buy some brakes from Campy with the ti bits already in them.

[Hindmost]

It's kind of cool in a retro, drillium, weight-weenie sort of way. If guys need to remove the grease from their bearings for a time trial they certainly need some titanium bits.

[GOTHBROOKS]

omas sold kits to overhaul your brakes and derailleur hardware like 50 years ago.

[Hellgate]

Now that is pretty darn cool! Nice work. Gotta live one off bits.

[pbarry]

omas sold kits to overhaul your brakes and derailleur hardware like 50 years ago.
Right? And then SRP in the 90's. Kinda cool, like modding old cars into rat rods. Not something I'll do, but respect for the tine and effort.

[cnighbor1]

The cost is $49.95
Thanks
CharlesNighbor

[Blue Jays]

"...OMAS sold kits to overhaul your brakes and derailleur hardware like 50 years ago..."
LOL! Remember that ridiculous stuff from back in the day?
Years ago an OMAS bolt snapped on my seatpost.
Tossed me to the ground in a (thankfully) pedestrian-speed crash.

:banana:

[Ken Robb]

How much weight could be saved by grinding off the tire guides from the brake pad holders?

[joosttx]

this is foolish in the best way possible.

[pbarry]

this is foolish in the best way possible.

Like.

[unterhausen]

How much weight could be saved by grinding off the tire guides from the brake pad holders?

just in case anyone is thinking about this, campagnolo brake shoe holders from that era go for over $100. So maybe replacing them temporarily with something else might be more prudent

[Ken Robb]

just in case anyone is thinking about this, campagnolo brake shoe holders from that era go for over $100. So maybe replacing them temporarily with something else might be more prudent

WHOA! I had better rummage around in my parts bin for hidden gold! :)

[martl]

Club member of ours had pimped his WW bike with CLB titaniums and aftermarket Ti bolts. The threads were cut, not rolled.

Snapped off plain (at the top of the Stelvio, no kiddin - he wasn't downhilling yet, thanks to the gods, just rocking back and forth a bit and playing with the brake lever).
There are *high* forces on that bolt, including bending stress. Threaded bolts hate bending stress.

Lessions learned:
a) It is possible, although not pleasurable, to descend the Stelvio with one rear CLB Ti brake.
b) you want that main brake bolt to be from the highest strength and most notch-effect resistent material you can get.

[Brian Smith]

There's the old addage - if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.
Perhaps to better honor that old tradition, you should use the best processes and inputs reasonably available, as they did back then.
If you're substituting titanium for steel in a fastener and the fastener is a component that sees load under safety-critical braking, choosing a simple piece of threaded rod that doesn't even match the original part's diameter where the loads are high is either spendthrift or foolish.
The material cost for at least matching the original bolt's diameter, or better yet increasing the part diameter where the bending load is greatest (say from 6mm to 8mm,) would be vanishingly small next to the overall cost of the materials plus machining time.

[Hindmost]

As I was going to sleep last night I realled the image of the all-thread used to make the brake bolt. I realized that the aluminum calipers would now pivot on the threaded portion of the shaft and thought that was not a good design decision. This morning I read the recent posts and also now see that the bending stresses are put into the threaded portion of the shaft. (It's weird the mental energy one can put into something one is not vested in.)

[unterhausen]

with proper preload and good thread form, it's no big deal to have all thread. But all thread is often not cut well.

[Mark McM]

with proper preload and good thread form, it's no big deal to have all thread. But all thread is often not cut well.

There have been some brakes which used full threaded titanium bolts, such as the Cane Creek BR200SL (and early ultra-light single pivot brake). I've got these brakes on two bikes, one of which has been in use for over 20 years. They've performed as well as any other single pivot brake. I've not heard of any problems with the bolt on these brakes breaking. The bolt used is a standard industrial bolt, so it may used rolled threads, or at least well made cut threads.